What proboiotic do you take?

[carer51]

James eats 3 bananas a day as he says it's the only way to stay 'regular'. However he's had worse issues for some time now - diarrhoea/constipation/wind - such that I can't remember how long it's been. Maybe it's always been the same but it seems worse lately.

I've been reading that a low carbohydrate/simple sugars/ketogenic diet is helpful for many here, but it will be quite difficult to change his diet over, I'll have to think pretty hard about it and probably do it slowly, much of it is based on convenience and energy levels for both of us.

I've just noticed James' probiotics have run out from his medicine caddy, probably been a couple of weeks now. What should I replace it with? Looking on Amazon is so overwhelming, there are some people saying 'don't buy this, buy a 'good quality' probiotic' - what does that even mean? Or people saying you should buy well-known brands which I'm pretty skeptical about!

Thinking of trying these Lepicol capsules if we do decide to cut down on the carbs etc but would have to make sure he had plenty of water with it as he does have a habit of just swallowing down his tablets with food or a very small amount of liquid: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lepicol-He...id=1486550741&sr=8-23&keywords=probiotics+IBS

Might be a relatively expensive option too since it looks like you can take up to 5 capsules at a time.
(He finds the liquid fibre type stuff that you mix and drink too nauseating).

What probiotic(s) do you take and should it include a prebiotic too?

 

[carer51]

Bearing in mind we only have an NHS diagnosis of IBS and ME to go on and general, I guess, sluggish bowels.

 

[Plum]

I use Sunbiotics as it's organic. It was available in the UK but isn't anymore. I get mine from iHerb. It contains prebiotic as well as probiotics.
I wasn't doing very well on a low carb diet. I know some do. But I just wanted to mention that I feel better on a moderate carb diet.

 

[carer51]

Thank you Plum that's really helpful - yes I think moderate might be the way to go for us. I myself feel pretty good on a low carb diet but it's a lot of effort etc so not something i do a lot, and im not sure my partner would respond the same way.

 

[tinacarroll27]

I have used biokult and they did help me a lot but it took about 6 months to see a difference,

 

[JES]

Most of the probiotics on the market have little clinical evidence and some may even harm CFS/ME by increasing pro-inflammatory cytokines and thus making you feel worse. On top of my head, the couple of Lactobacillus strains that had some evidence of usefulness in humans were Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG and Lactobacillus reuteri. The problem is that most brands mix about 6-12 strains together. I would stay away from those and buy single strain.

Other good probiotics that Ken Lassesen's blog recommends are the E. coli ones (Symbioflor/Mutaflor/Colibiogen), but they are somewhat hard to find and typically not available e.g. in USA. Finally there are soil-based probiotics such as Prescript Assist, which are very trendy right now. It seems that they could help to balance the microbiome in multiple ways, but again not much clinical evidence and myself had a bad reaction to Prescript Assist.

 

[Tyto alba]

Have you considered giving kefir a try?

 

[TigerLilea]

What probiotic(s) do you take and should it include a prebiotic too?

You might want to check out CFS Remission. Ken Lassesen has been able to go into remission three times by working on his gut bacteria. His research has shown that most people with CFS/ME are low in the good e-coli. You won't find that in your local pharmacy or health food store. In fact, the most commonly sold probiotics won't help with CFS/ME at all.