problems like IBS

Have you considered kefir? It is a natural source of probiotics and is really great for helping your intestinal tract recover after a prolonged set of antibiotics. The problem with the probiotics that you buy at the store is that they have only a few strains of probiotics (the most I've seen is 15) and that the probiotics, which are a living organism, have been processed and preserved so that you can be certain of getting many of them in good enough condition to repopulate your gut.

Water kefir (tibicos) has 20-30 strains or probiotics and milk kefir has 30-60. The milk kefir is more effective, but I've found the water kefir more convenient and cheaper to cultivate. Milk kefir might really help you , especially with your mild milk intolerance. It often helps restore your ability to digest milk.

Don't buy kefir "products" in the store...get yourself a live culture and grow your own. You put the kefir "grains" in the milk and in a couple of days you have a curd-like substance (mostly tasteless) that you can add to smoothies or yogurt. You separate the curds from the kefir grains, put the grains in a fresh jar of milk and consume the curds. There's lots of information online about kefir; read it yourself and order some.

And yes, I think probiotics or any sort will help. My daughter, who had never had allergies or food intolerances of any kind, was put on an extended prescription of antibiotics and within two weeks she had developed lactose intolerance, nut allergies and who knows what else. She had terrible diarrhea half a dozen times a day. Or more. Probiotics helped some, but not until after she was off the antibiotics, because the antibiotics would kill of the probiotics almost as fast as we fed them to her.

I started giving her probiotics about two weeks before I took her off the antibiotics. It took almost the entire two weeks for her diarrhea to improve, and it didn't entirely go away until a week after she was off the antibiotics. My husband, who was in the doctors' court at the time, claimed the probiotics cured her and that her doctor was correct in claiming "it couldn't be the antibiotics causing it, they are too "targeted"), but it was obvious to me that the antibiotics were the cause. The probiotics either effected or quickened the recovery but I doubt they would have been anywhere near as effective if she was still on the antibiotics.

Now, it wasn't kefir that I gave her, as I'd never heard of it at that time, just normal store-bought probiotics. I think they are definitely of benefit (I just think kefir is a more effective source of probiotics).

Also, just to clarify, my daughter was on the antibiotics for eight months. She had tested positive for TB and the doctor didn't know if that was because she had TB (we were exposed) or just a false positive because of the vaccination (she was vaccinated in China). She started her health issues a little over a week after she went on the antibiotics and they ceased a little over a week after she stopped, eight months later. That's a pretty compelling evidence for a causative diagnosis, IMHO.

I hope they work for you! I'd still recommend that you try kefir, if you don't get a complete recovery from just the store-bought probiotics. I got my milk kefir from Amazon (just google for "Amazon kefir"...I just checked and you can get it for under $10, free shipping :)

Hopefully you'll recover quickly. My daughter had non-stop diarrhea for eight months and it only took her a few weeks to recover from that. Though I have always worried that I allowed my timidity to do her permanent damage. During the entire eight months she didn't grow at all, but once her diarrhea was cured she went directly from a size 2-1/2 infants to a size 5 in just a few months.