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primadophilus reuteri or Culturelle probiotics

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Ulcerative Colitis
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Posted 12/9/2014 11:04 AM (GMT 0)
hello there.
I am very up and down with my UC symptoms, and not been in remission for months. I currently take 4 x mezavant XL (I am in the UK) and recently started up again with my Salofalk enemas once a night, which are helping. However, I still have urgency after eating and drinking, and particularly in the morning, I think from the enema, lots of quite loose BMs. It's Ok when I'm home, but when I'm out and about, it's just hard to deal with, particularly with 2 young children.
I am taking a probiotic (TERRANOVA Probiotic Complex), but I really don't think it's helping and after some research, think I'm going to try either primadophilus reuteri or Culturelle. I wondered if someone could give some advice as to which might be better?
MY UC is definitely lower down - it started off as proctitis and has spread upwards, so when the enema does it's thing, after a couple of weeks, I'm never quite sure what to do next as I'm not sure if it bypasses the inflammation at the very beginning of the rectum. I do have Pentasa suppositories too, but also find they cause urgency - or maybe I'm just not sticking with them for long enough?
Anyway, any advice would be super-great!
Thanks
Posted 12/9/2014 6:01 PM (GMT 0)
I vote for primadophilus reuteri as that's what I use to take daily (I got to a point where I was having extreme difficulties with developing an RV fistula and had some pretty severe constipation so I stopped taking virtually everything I was on--naturals--) and I also switched from the primadophilus reuteri when it doubled in price so I started taking Sangsters brand Pro-Bio TX11 if I remember correctly...it's basically the same as the PR but cheaper cost. I incorporated probiotics back into the now small mix of vitamins that I take and haven't noticed any improvements as a result so I stopped bothering with probiotics for now.
Posted 12/9/2014 8:02 PM (GMT 0)
Probiotics are a hit and miss for everyone. What helps one person, makes another worse, and does nothing in the others. It's all trial and error. VSL is the most widely and commonly used for UC and has studies on it for UC but it can make some worse and do nothing in some others. Many find it expensive but if you divide the price by the CFU's it is actually cheaper than them all. Sometimes price is a matter of perspective. Most who have success with probiotics take at least 50 billion CFU's per day, sometimes much, much more. VSL studies went up to as much as 3600 billion CFU's per day. VSL#3 DS is sometimes covered by insurance but not most of the time.
Posted 12/10/2014 12:46 AM (GMT 0)
If you're looking to try l.reuteri an alternative to primadophilus is BioGia - The difference being it's live bacteria and not that expensive.

www.biogaia.com/product/biogaia-protectis-drops

I've taken both with what I felt was good results. I tend to lean to the BioGia as it's easy to get at the drugstore here. They keep it in their fridge behind the pharmacy counter.

EDIT: I should have added that I recently stopped all probiotics. Although I felt the reuteri helped initially, after a while I was curious what would happen if I stopped. I actually felt better after stopping. So who knows. Maybe it helped initially though.

Post Edited (Canada Mark) : 12/9/2014 7:00:37 PM (GMT-7)

Posted 12/10/2014 12:58 AM (GMT 0)
Gary's right that picking a probiotic is a bit of a crapshoot. I take Culturelle and like it but I decided to try it because I wanted to add a probiotic and it was cheap at Costco.

So with all things pretty much equal, go for the one that's less expensive and easier to get. If it helps, great, you save some money. If it doesn't help or make things worse try the other option.
Posted 12/10/2014 10:48 AM (GMT 0)
thanks very much!
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