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could there be a problem with this many probiotics?

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Ulcerative Colitis
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Posted 1/5/2010 11:57 AM (GMT 0)
Hello all,

I have renamed myself optimistically Queen of the Colon because I have subjugated it and now I rule it.

My army of probiotics conquered it.

I feel like I was never sick - and I was just diagnosed last month. I never took the sulfasalazine prescribed to me 2 weeks ago either.

But it was just an experiment I never asked the doctor.... can there be a problem with this many probiotics? Has anybody else tried this?

I took 1 capsule morning and night, with food, of:

Polybac 8 - 8 strains:
Streptococcus thermophilus (1.5 billion)
Bifidobacterium lactis (4.5 billion) and longum (4.5 billion)
Lactobacillus acidophilus (7.5 billion), casei (7.5 billion), plantarum (7.5 billion), rhamnosus (9 billion), salivarius ssp salivarius (3 billion)

Nourishing flora - 8 strains:
Bifidobacterium bifidum (333,000)
Lactobacillus acidophilus (3 billion), plantarum (1.66 billion), casei (333 million), delbrueckii (333,000), rhamnosus (333,000), brevis (333,000), kefir (333,000)

IBS Supprt
Lactobacillus plantarum (20 billion)

UltraBiotic 45 - 9 strains
Streptococcus thermophilus (2.25 billion)
Bifidobacterium bifidum (450 million), breve (1.35 billion), lactis (4.05 billion)
Lactobacillus acidophilus (7.4 billion), casei (9.45 billion), fermentum (1.35 billion), plantarum (3.35 billion), Rhamnosus (15.55 billion)

Yakult fermented milk drink
Lactobacilus Casei - shirota strain. Unknown amount of live culture - 2 small drinks per day.


TOTAL PER DAY:

Streptococcus thermophilus: 7.5 billion (2 brands)

Bifidobacterium lactis: 17.1 billion (2 brands)
Bifidobacterium longum: 9 billion

Lactobacilli:
Acidophilus: 35.8 billion (3 brands)
Casei: 34.566 billion + shirota strain ??? (5 bands all up)
Plantarum: 65.02 billion (4 brands)
Rhamnosus: 49.1 billion (3 brands)
Salivarius ssp salivarius: 6 billion
delbrueckii: 666,000
brevis: 666,000
Kefir: 666,000
fermentum: 2.7 billion

Or: 13 different types of organisms for a total of 226.788 billion organisms each day.
Posted 1/5/2010 12:50 PM (GMT 0)
I should add: I took these probiotics in conjunction with:

* plenty of rest (days and days in bed when I just had a lot of sleep and no work, no chores
* rested the colon with NO big meals. Just regular staple of porridge for breakfast and sometimes just liquid soup or Up and Go for dinner - no solid food just resting that colon. Then I graduated up to boiled rice and tuna. Then I began eating other soft foods.
Posted 1/5/2010 2:33 PM (GMT 0)
are you eating regularly now?
Posted 1/6/2010 10:01 AM (GMT 0)
hello Kweeks, thanks for replying :)

Yes, I'm eating pretty much regularly. I still have my morning staple of porridge, fish oil tablet, cod liver oil tablet, iron tablet, 4 x probiotic tablets.

But i am off the 4 probiotics in the night now

I'm grazing and eating anything i see except obvious no-nos like say an orange or something really scratchy or loads of milk
Posted 1/6/2010 1:18 PM (GMT 0)
QofC, Why do you call an orange an "obvious no-no?" I read an article last week about their benefits for UC'ers. I actually have one on my desk I'm about to peel open!
Posted 1/6/2010 2:13 PM (GMT 0)
Levi, some people have trouble with the acidity and/or the fiber in the pulp. Sometimes I've found that to be the case for me and other times there's no problem at all (I've been eating plenty of clementines in the past month or so, yum!). Different things bother different people. For me, I figure it probably depends where the inflammation is when something unusual bothers me.
This whole business is highly individualistic, so, if it doesn't bother you, eat the orange! :-)
Posted 1/6/2010 5:10 PM (GMT 0)
Drink some vitamin water with b-complex that will
help your energy
Posted 1/6/2010 7:22 PM (GMT 0)
I really have no idea if there is any issue with taking that make probiotics. I can't imagine there is, but I really don't know at all!!

I did have a chiropractor once who did this muscle testing on me and said that she determined from that that I needed to increase my probiotic. It didn't help, but I was pretty far gone into my flare at that point. Plus is wasn't a particularly potent probiotic.

Nowadays, I do up the probiotic when things aren't going well and while I don't take anything like you do, I can't see how it would be detrimental.
Posted 1/6/2010 7:34 PM (GMT 0)
Shouldn't be an issue. The max dose of VSL#3 DS that I've seen is four packets per day which is 3.6 trillon probiotics.
Posted 1/6/2010 8:20 PM (GMT 0)
Thank you very much for your replies everyone :)

I only thought an orange would be out as a friend of mine who had irritable bowel troubles told me to avoid anything acidic. I had trouble with tomatoes so I figured an orange would be out.

To be honest, I have not tried one as I've been a little scared to. I've only eaten a banana since i was diagnosed.

For the vitamin B I forgot to add, I also take half a berocca (fizzy vitamin B tablet) with water at breakfast.

The reason I started this thread to ask if there were troubles with taking too many probiotics, is everthing that has an effect can have a side-effect

The probiotics seemed to have helped - but there might be side-effects to washing so many billions of organisms into my system.

Bearing in mind that the gut has billions of diverse flora, and I'm loading it up with just 13 strains out of a possible 1 million + variants.

Maybe that's not good in some ways.

I noticed the slick you get on the back of your tongue by the end of the day (i notice as i always brush my tongue when i clean my teeth before bed at night) - mine used to be white for all my life. Now it is a dark rusty orange colour. Must be one little side effect of the probiotics, as it only happened when I started.

If that is the only side-effect, I'm happy. But there could be others I don't know about. Could I get toxic megacolon from too many probiotics eg?
Posted 1/7/2010 7:04 PM (GMT 0)
Wow Queen of the Colon,

That's a lot of probiotics, you maybe the only human being to take such large quantities consisting of various products and strains. My guess is that you want to use probiotics to kill whatever bad bacteria is in your gut and therefore heal yourself of colitis?

I don't think anyone can predict side effects with such large doses...although some manufactures warn of constipation if you take too many.

How long to you plan to take that many probiotics? I am curious as to the outcome after a period of, lets say...a week?

NBT
Posted 3/17/2012 12:53 PM (GMT 0)
hello all its Queen of the Colon here

I just wanted to let you all know the long term outcome of my experiment

three years on it still seems to have worked

I have not relapsed

one gut specialist i went to for a checkup last year said he thought perhaps i had been misdiagnosed

but this is doubtful as i had a colonoscopy and they took tissue samples, showed them to me and explained i definitely had ulcerative colitis back in 2009

the only times i have had any diarrhea or any symptoms that harked back to the bad old days just before diagnosis, has been when i took antibiotics for unrelated colds

that then played havoc with my system,

and i did the same thing: probiotics, anti candida tablet and small liquid meals f or a day or two, and it cleared up

now i'm eating normally and if i want an orange or sun dried tomatoes on a pizza or anything at all i can eat it. even 500 gram rump steak on mashed potatoes.

it might not work for everyone but if you can give the experiment a go, who knows maybe it will work for you too

i also never took the sulfasalazine

best of luck for all here
Posted 3/17/2012 1:16 PM (GMT 0)
Or: 13 different types of organisms for a total of 226.788 billion organisms each day.

Many here are on prescription VSL#3DS. One package contains 8 strains of bacteria with 950 billion organisms. Some take 2-4 packages a day which can be up to 3.8 Trillion organisms.

And that is nothing compared to the wide diversity potential with a fecal transplant from a healthy donor. That would be untold trillions of organisms from hundreds or thousands of strains of bacteria. Most of the bacteria in the colon are yet to be discovered and isolated.
Posted 3/17/2012 4:43 PM (GMT 0)
Hi Queen

Good to see you back again.  Glad to hear that your experiment has continued to work.  I really appreciate when people come back to tell how they are doing especially if they are doing well.  I hope you will continue to pop in and let us know how it is going.  3 years w/out symptoms is great!  If I miss any rectal meds, symptoms come back for me.  I take traditional meds, fiber,  probiotics VSL 3 and some Kefir drink.

B

Posted 3/17/2012 8:08 PM (GMT 0)
Personally I don't see anything wrong with the numbers, especially if you are getting results. You may have been very lucky and your colitis was a bacteroid imbalance/infection that got fixed when your army (love it) changed the colon environment enough so your body could self regulate. I used to take unearthly amounts of probots (trillions a day in pills, self made yogurts, store boughts etc) and I'm still here. In fact I feel probots are vital in UC remission. They are worthless when you're bleedin so don't waste your money at that time. My opinion. They may even be harmful when the mucosal layer is compromised. Idk.

I still take them, albeit not so high anymore. Now I just stick to multistrain yogurts and lactose free milk. I drink a protein shake and fiber supp with the yogurt so my friendlies can have a buffet in my sm intestine and increase exponentially before they reach their destination. I'm not much on pills anymore bc I feel now that a food item allows for them to survive stomach pH better and they are chillin in their natural food sources already (this makes the bad guys very mad- as they are left with sloppy seconds from the jump). The food helps tame some of the mortality rates from stomach acids too. I figure I can initially drop about 400 bil or so in one 4 oz. glop of quality yogo. Do a bit of exponential cell division math and the numbers add up quick during transit to colon world.

In all Queen, congrats on your remission success and I wish you many more years of it. I too don't take meds and enjoy about a 95% remission rate and most of the food I can eat minus the no no's. In 17 years I've taken about a half a bottle of pentasa and a few asacol before I "lost" the bottle. I only take pred on rare occasions and that's just bc I can't find anything natural that works better yet.

Peace and Love
Posted 3/17/2012 9:51 PM (GMT 0)
That many supplements must get expensive... have you tried kefir? The non-commercial stuff has a huge variety of healthy bugs, each numbering in the billions per cup, and it's dirt cheap to make it yourself.
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