Probiotic -Till recentlly...

[fadedrose]

I never even heard of them. I still think of probiotic as an adjective, not a noun.

How did I go so long using vitamins and supplements and never hear of the word till maybe a year ago?

What is it for and who takes it here in the group?

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. they are used to give your gut "good" bacteria

when your gut bacteria is killed off by anti-biotic or illness.

An example you might know of...when you take anti-biotics you usually get diarrhea.
All the "yeasty beasties" in your gut are being killed along with whatever bug the anti-biotic was targeting.
Taking probiotics helps prevent that.

And, research is showing there are many different kinds of good beasties.
I usually take probiotcs in a capsule, which has several kinds of the good guys.
Yogurt "with live cultures" usually only has 1-2 types of probiotics.

Worth your time to read up on the subject, fascinating info.

[fadedrose]

2. Thank you dixiegrrrrl

Your usual excellent information is helpful. So this is something kind of new to treat an old problem.

If one has not taken an antibiotic, and has pains in the groin- tummy area spreading to the lower back, would probiotics be worth trying?

I will read up more of them, thanks...

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. If I had the symptoms you are describing...

and the pain did not go away after a day or 2, I would be in my doctor's office.
Too many possibilities can cause that kind of pain.

[ProfessorGAC]

10. My Wife Had To Take Them After A MRSA Regime

That IV antibiotic (actually two different ones) knocked off everything for her. She was on an OTC probiotic and Activia for 6 months before her GI system came back into balance.

[mopinko]

3. research has been mixed. i kiss my dog on the mouth.

there is a research study that i read about the other day into whether good bacteria could be transferred from dogs to people.

afaik, most of the products on the market dont really work that well. there are prescription grades ones that do have some positive research results.
this is not a new thing. they were researching this at least 10 years ago when my youngest was dx'd with chron's. they were not recommended for her, because the research wasnt there.

also, see a doctor.

[fadedrose]

4. It may have been researched 10 years ago

But there are as many commercials on TV about probiotics as there are products that prepare a man to have sex at a moment's notice...and some commercials look as though the females are their granddaughters

About seeing a doctor....when I feel pain, I don't want to go out, and when I feel good, I don't need to see a doctor. Ain't that the way it goes with everyone?

[mopinko]

5. yeah it is.

i know that drill.

i think there was a thread in health a while back about probiotics. pretty sure that was the gist of it, that the otc ones were not strong enough or not enough species.

i think the real results on this concept were from fecal transplants. making it through the human digestive system from the top is hard to do.

[Warpy]

7. Mostly, it's the gut friendly bacteria that go into yogurt and kefir

at this point, but as they learn more about what a healthy gut bacterial colony looks like, we'll probably see prescription gut bugs down the road.

These days, you might as well just enjoy the yogurt.

In other words, the science has only started to be done and so far, it's found that the flora in skinny people are quite different than those in obese people and that's what the health foods industry is responding to, that and hypochondriacs who think the placebo effect works.

About all I'd suggest the health food store "probiotics" for is someone on heavy antibiotics who's getting diarrhea from them and who can't stand the taste of yogurt.

[murielm99]

12. If I take an antibiotic,

my doctor tells me to eat yogurt. It works. I don't need to do anything complicated.

[Warpy]

13. Same here, I live on yogurt and kefir until a week or two after it's all over

just to keep my guts colonized with something decent. Otherwise, I'm sick as hell on antibiotics.

[jomin41]

8. I've been trying and using

different probiotics for, idk, 15 years or so. I have IBS or some kind of bacterial insufficiency in the bowel. Would really like to try the fecal transplant, but... Anyway, of all the probiotics I've tried, including one RX, I'm not impressed. Apparently, some types help some people but remember that the placebo effect can be around 30 %?? The only one that I'm still using is an Acidophilus complex by Solgar. ( "Advanced Acidophilus&quot . I think they help but my symptoms are so random that it's hard to tell for sure. I'm so desperate that I'm afraid to eat a meal without one. ALSO, I use digestive enzymes which, I think, have a little more evidence on their side, but don't quote on that. And there are all kinds of these things on the market. I use one called " Ultra-Zyme" by Nature's Plus. Nature's Plus also has one called "Ultra Actizyme", that I can't use because of the FOS. Otherwise I think it is superior.
I got "floxxed" last year (Cypro), and I'm still f'd up.

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. ahhh...the joys of getting older and "digestives"

for whatever reason, I can experience definite difficulties with certain foods, both dairy and fats, that never bothered me 10 years ago.
So have been relying on a combo of digestive enzymes in one pill, is very effective, as I can tell by what happens when I forget to take it.
very rapid feedback loop, let us say.

[ClintEast]

9. no way....

this is one hell of a complicated issue