Hello and welcome
what worked for me (and may or may not help you) was the following:
** As many different probiotic brands/organisms as you can. I had 5 different jars at one point. I took 1 capsule of each, morning and night. It cost a lot, about
$130 for all of them and they are the refrigerated type from the chemist - ie: heavy duty.
I did this for about
2 months
** Eating liquid foods with no scratchy bits: porridge for breakfast with an iron tablet (anaemia) and 2 fish oil capsules. Up&Go liquid food (chocolate) for lunch. Tin of soup for dinner. No scratchy foods. Lots of water. At night: a calcium tablet.
** Avoiding acidic foods like citrus/tomato. No sundried tomato in particular. No capsicum. Avoid cheese / dairy. No processed meats like cabanosi full of salts, spices and preservatives, and sadly too no bacon. Small meals only, no large steak dinners.
** NO alcohol
This regime pretty well fixed me. I'm not on any medication now, and rarely even take the probiotics any more. I still avoid scratchy foods though i can eat a small steak again and bacon on the odd occasion. Yesterday i had cabanosi, cheese and crackers for the first time in ages and I'm fine.
I've also been back on the wine, just a couple of glasses. All is gud
Now the most exciting alternate remedy i've read on these pages is helminthic therapy.
Humans evolved in symbiosis with bacteria/worms in our gut. But now we kick them out with antibiotics/worming tablets, it sends our immune systems haywire, so the hygiene theory goes.
Intentionally getting infected with hookworms/pig whipworms is one interesting avenue of research being pursued to help all those of us with immune disorders including IBD, asthma, MS and type 2 diabetes.
From the wikipedia page, they did trials with hookworm and found:
"A clinical trial(summers) on patients with ulcerative colitis, indicated that 13 of 30 patients (43%), given 2500 ova/dose bi-weekly for a twelve week period, showed improvement in their disease index activity. Better results were obtained in Crohn’s patients, with a 72% remission rate following eight doses of 2500 ova over a 24 week period
. No side effects were reported in either study."
The worms don't reproduce in you so the dose is controlled. They are not infectious so you don't give them to people around, and if you want to get rid of them, just take mebendazole.
Now pig whipworm was found to be better for UC, while hookworm better for Crohns.
But they are not without potential side effects:
"Few side effects of treatment with TSO (pig whipworm) have been reported, although adult Trichuris Suis have been found in more than one subject, something which originally was not expected to happen and the reason for the banning order by US Customs preventing the importation into the USA for personal use of TSO.
"Hookworm cause more side effects. One of the remarkable aspects of helminthic therapy with hookworm is the enormous range of reactions in patients to therapy. Side effects are transient, generally occurring episodically for days or weeks at a time starting day four after inoculation and ending around week 10. Side effects can include a rash at the inoculation site, nausea, diarrhea, gas, bloating, cramping, epigastric pain and episodes of fatigue. In extreme cases the diarrhea can be debilitating and the epigastric pain intense, causing termination of therapy.
The incidence of side effects for most subjects is dose dependent, but for a minority (less than 5%) side effects are severe regardless of dose. This appears to occur more commonly in women than men."
wikipedia here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helminthic_therapy