Probiotics?
Do any of you find probiotics to be helpful? If so, what are you taking? I just read an article about a study that showed probiotics could do harm to healthy people. It took 5 months for a healthy person to "recover" their diverse microbiome bacteria after taking a probiotic (during antibiotic use). The group that did NOT take a probiotic with antibiotic use only took two weeks to recover their diverse microbiome bacteria. The study did find that people with IBS said that probiotics were helpful. I'm taking "Seed," and I have noticed a positive difference in my IBS-C. It does seem to be helpful. I've just been taking this probiotic for two weeks. The last thing on earth I want to do is risk making this worse!! Any thoughts???
I have read the same things about probiotics. I think the key word is it could be harmful in "healthy" people. If you have zero gut issues, have healthy BM's and go to the bathroom regularly then definitely I feel like there would be no need to take a probiotic. If your gut is compromised. You struggle with having BM's and they are not formed and you even have cramping etc. A probiotic might be a good idea. For me personally, I took a probiotic by the brand Garden of Life. I had major issues with bloating, constipation and I was not having regular bowel movements. The probiotic helped me tremendously and got me going to the bathroom regularly.
If you take probiotics and feel well, then I say keep taking it. If you take them and feel unwell, stop taking it. Of course these are just my opinions, I am not a doctor. I think overall, talk it over with your GI or functional doctor.
-Elizabeth (team member)
Yes, it is helping me, so I think I will continue to take it a least for a few months. Thank you for your response!
That's fantastic! I hope it continues to aid in having regular BM's. What type/brand are you taking? I know others would love to know! Wishing you a gentle and symptom-free day. ~ Sawyer (irritablebowelsyndrome.net team)
What you wrote is interesting indeed. I have often wondered the exact same thing. I had to take a 5 day course of antibiotics (the last time I did) for a tooth root infection in 2006. I didn't have IBS then, and all was well with my gut generally. But all I can say is during the course, I did have a couple of times with slightly looser than normal bowel movements, but nothing bad really. But when the course finished I had no problems at all, and absolutely no gut disturbances following, in all the years before I started with IBS. Neither did I have any other health problems until 2018.
I take that to mean my microbiota wasn't upset and recovered well from the short antibiotic course.
I have also thought about this: many healthy-gut people hear about probiotics being a great thing to take regularly, and they are likely to choose yogurts, kefir, or other drinks which all contain mainly lactobacillus. So are those people getting billions of lactobacillus in their system which- (can this happen?) -could crowd out other strains?I am a bit wary of probiotics myself, though many say they do help them. I always get a strong instinctive feeling they might make me worse so haven't taken any yet (against everyone telling me I should!)
I'm always wondering about this as well. I suppose that it really depends on the original state of a person's microbiome... like if you have an overgrowth of bad bacteria, probiotics are helpful, but if gut issues are caused by something else, they can make things worse? I'm just speculating though, no idea if that's how it works. Karina (team member)
