Probiotics

I have been taking probiotics for a little over a month now, and they do seem to be helping quite a lot. There are a lot of good brands available, and I am sure more people here will have suggestions for you :) Cheers!

Probiotics did NOT work for me at all and in fact made things worse.  I suffer from constipation and very seldom any diarrhea.  Probiotics made it worse.  They may work for you.  All you can do is try them.  I used the CVS brand of pill form and I tried the Greek yogurt with the probiotics.  Good luck to you.

Tess

@Tess34: Did you every try any other probiotic? I find the store brands make my stomach hurt worse and I too suffer from constipation and have found relief when I found the right probiotic for me.

  Anyways, my GI  told me he thinks everyone should be on a probiotic, not just IBD patients. I usually hate the idea of supplements and all natural stuff(I'm stubborn) but after finding the right kind I did notice I now have less gas pain! I use Lichi Super Fruit probiotics at the moment and haven't had any issues so I think I'll keep with it! I think I bought the probiotics from a drug store like CVS.

There was a thread on here a couple of years back, asking via a poll what sorts of treatment people had had long term success with. (Or words to that effect.)
Probiotics were the one type of medication that had the single largest proportion of hits, with about 25% of respondents having either used them successfully in the past, or using them with some success on an ongoing basis. (That included some who did not find them a great success, but felt they improved their symptoms.)
Personally I use them to help "switch off" a flare - just a simple probiotic soya yoghurt can make a big difference, if I start using it soon enough - and I have used Udo's Choice Super8 capsules with success in the past, as part of a regime of nutritional therapy which ended a rampaging flare.
As regards finding which one works for you, recent research sheds some light on why there might be variation. After taking samples worldwide, apparently doctors analysing the intestinal flora genome have come to the conclusion that rather like blood types being universal, worldwide there are only three gut bacteria ecosystems to be found in human beings; each may be associated with susceptibilities to different types of poor health. For example, Type A might be prone to obesity and type 2 diabetes, Type B might be prone to multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, and Type C might be prone to cervical or prostate cancer. ( That's just a made up example, I don't even know what the bacterial ecosystem categories are called.)
These vulnerabilities might also have some overlap, which would complicate matters; so Types A and B might both be prone to Crohn's.
So the wrong probiotic might not work for you, depending on what types of gut bacteria you have.
Plus of course, if probiotics are crowding out an overgrowth of toxic bacteria, then you might expect diarrhoea as the bad bacteria flush out of your gut, and possibly Herx'ing - (Herxheimer-Jarisch reaction) where the toxins produced by dying nasties make you feel like death warmed up.
So clear as mud really...but definitely worth trying.

Post Edited (snohare) : 2/10/2012 7:55:12 AM (GMT-7)

For women at least, given the known great influence of hormonal fluctuations on immune system function, I would expect at least a month is needed - six weeks would be better.
For men - who knows ? Until they have done some hoovering and dusting, perhaps...

It not make any difference to my system. I stopped taking them after 5 months. and I tried a couple of different once. My Gi said it was one of those individualized things that goes with crohn's......some benefit from it and some do not, but it was worth a try.

I take Culturelle (lactobacillus GG) and S. Boulardii. I take several of these pills daily even though the directions say one/day. I find more is better.

I also take VSL3 with 1/2 trillion bacteria. Most probiotics only have a few billion but you can also get VSL3DS (double strength) which is by prescription with almost one trillion bacteria. I find it very effective. You just need to find a G.I. or PCP who will prescribe it for you and perhaps your health insurance will pay some of the cost of it.

Probiotics are expensive for me but they are crucial for my remission. They still cost less than Asacol. Here is a good write-up:

www.drhoffman.com/page.cfm/169
One of the most studied probiotics is lactobacillus GG. Children (median age, 14.5 years) with mildly to moderately active Crohn's disease despite therapy with prednisone and immunomodulatory drugs (such as 6-mercaptopurine, azathioprine, or methotrexate) were given Lactobacillus GG twice a day for six months. The median pediatric Crohn's disease activity index score at four weeks was 73% lower (better) than at baseline, and three patients had a score of less than 10, indicating inactive disease. In some patients it was possible to taper the dose of prednisone by an average of 50% after 12 weeks of Lactobacillus GG treatment. Intestinal permeability, measured by a double sugar permeability test, improved in an almost parallel fashion. The researchers concluded that Lactobacillus GG may improve gut barrier function and clinical status in children with mildly to moderately active Crohn's disease.

One of my favorite good guys of the gut is actually "good yeast". Sacchromyces boulardii is good yeast that has been studied extensively for intestinal diseases and symptoms of IBD. It is wonderful for controlling diarrhea, especially if Clostridium difficille is the cause. Saccharomyces boulardii releases a protein that interferes with the binding of toxin A secreted by C. difficile to its receptor.

In a randomized placebo-controlled trial, Saccharomyces boulardii in combination with vancomycin or metronidazole reduced the relapse rate by 50% and was well tolerated.

Thirty-two patients with Crohn's disease in clinical remission were randomly assigned to receive one of the following for 6 months: 1) mesalamine (1 g 3 times per day) or 2) mesalamine (1 g 2 times per day) plus Saccharomyces boulardii (1 g in the morning). Clinical relapse, defined as a Crohn's disease activity index greater than 150 with an increase of 100 points over the baseline value for more than 2 weeks, occurred in 6 of 16 patients (37.5%) receiving mesalamine alone and in 1 of 16 patients (6.25%) receiving combination therapy (p=0.04).

Well I guess I have to do some homework on probiotics. I'm still pretty new to this miserable disease and still learning! Thank you for the advice and info. I did also try the Dannon yogurt probiotic, again no way!! I guess I didn't know there were so many choices out there for probiotics. I should have know I guess as there is a choice for everything!

Has anyone tried using Mineral oil?

For my daughter with UC we've tried all sorts and by the bucket loads - vsl3, ultimate flora, mutaflor, florastor, udos choice, digestagold and i can not remember what else. One we haven't tried and which i'm interested in is culturelle - anyone try it with negative effects? I don't want her getting worse at this point.