Anybody tried kefir?

[gbells]

Hi, has anyone got any experience drinking kefir? How did you find it?

I'd heard some good things, so I got some grains and started making some using whole milk. The last two days I've started having just a little bit - 1 tbsp a day. It's given me a bit of stomach pain and I've been really thirsty and felt a bit "off" - but I believe this can be common to start with, and could actually be a good thing as it means it's killing off the bad bacteria? I've read you should just carry on taking it, the symptoms will die down and then you can gradually increase the amount.

So I need to decide whether to stick with it - to help me decide I wondered if anyone else has tried kefir, and if you found it helpful or harmful?

Thanks.

Kefir is basically high alcohol liquid yogurt. You can make it yourself if you make yogurt in the instapot if after you ferment the milk you add some psyllium fiber and cooled, boiled (sterile) water and let it ferment another 2 hours.

 

[Abrin]

Yes they did, I've been able to build up slowly to a full cup a day, I'm still splitting it into three doses at the moment so now I'm slowly building up to taking it all in one go!

I feel like it's too early to be sure if it's helping me in any way, I will update when I've been taking it a bit longer. One thing I have noticed is my eczema on my hands hasn't been as bad, I've also had a couple of slightly better weeks with fatigue, but those things may just be coincidences. I will keep you posted!

Thanks so much for keeping me posted!

I am so happy to hear that the temporary bad side effects you were having did end up improving.

 

[Abrin]

Kefir is basically high alcohol liquid yogurt. You can make it yourself if you make yogurt in the instapot if after you ferment the milk you add some psyllium fiber and cooled, boiled water and let it ferment another 2 hours.

Kefir is made from 'kefir grains' which are a specific type of mesophilic symbiotic culture. Not only is there milk kefir grains that feed off of milk, there is also water kefir grains that feed off of sugar water.

Sadly, it is near impossible to make these 'grains' from scratch.

 

[gbells]

I wouldn't worry about magic Kefir grains. The point of yogurt is to culture healthy gut bacteria. There is no health benefit of kefir over a good yogurt culture (like Stonyfield plain/vanilla live yogurt). My instapot version made with A2 milk tastes the same and is much cheaper.

 

[keepswimming]

Kefir is basically high alcohol liquid yogurt. You can make it yourself if you make yogurt in the instapot if after you ferment the milk you add some psyllium fiber and cooled, boiled (sterile) water and let it ferment another 2 hours.

I am making my own kefir using kefir grains, it's very cheap and easy to make. Separately I also make live yoghurt 😊

 

[Abrin]

I wouldn't worry about magic Kefir grains. The point of yogurt is to culture healthy gut bacteria.

Unlike yogurt, the bacteria in milk kefir can actually colonize the intestinal tract. It also contains a way larger range of bacteria than yogurt, in addition to it also containing yeasts.

The bacteria from yogurt on the other hand passes through the digestive tract. The bacteria in it will provide food the friendly bacteria in your gut but does not colonize your intestinal tract.

Huge difference.

 

[keepswimming]

I just wanted to update now I've been drinking kefir for a couple of months. I've found it noticeably beneficial and will definitely be carrying on with it.

The biggest improvement I've seen is in my eczema. Before drinking kefir I was using a strong steroid cream on my hands every two days, and it still wasn't under control - I was on a waiting list to see my dermatologist as I'd reached the limit of safe usage for that cream.

Since drinking kefir, the amount I've used the steroid cream has significantly reduced, I'm going to cancel my appointment with the dermatologist because I'm well within safe usage limits again (that's despite lots of hand washing/gelling which is the worst thing for my hands). I also had eczema on my legs which has completely disappeared since drinking kefir.

I should add, eczema is something I've had since I was a child, so this is a long term condition that the kefir has significantly improved.

My IBS-d symptoms have also improved since drinking kefir.

CFS wise, one thing I've noticed since drinking kefir is I've had less severe PEM episodes. They seem to have been shorter and less severe than usual (until last week when I got over-confident and caused a bad episode!).

I can't say for sure it's the kefir to thank for this - it might be a coincidence, but it's certainly coincided with drinking kefir.

So personally I'm finding drinking kefir is doing me good and I will be keeping it up 👍

 

[gbells]

Unlike yogurt, the bacteria in milk kefir can actually colonize the intestinal tract. It also contains a way larger range of bacteria than yogurt, in addition to it also containing yeasts.

The bacteria from yogurt on the other hand passes through the digestive tract. The bacteria in it will provide food the friendly bacteria in your gut but does not colonize your intestinal tract.

Huge difference.

I'm not a fan of yeast colonizing the gut.

Yogurt raises lactobacillus and firmicutes bacteria indirectly. We already knew that bacteria are primarily affected by diet and roundup pesticide concentration in foods. Yes yogurt isn't a good way to reseed and I don't see any reason kefir would be any different. Rectal probiotic enema is the way to go if you need to reseed the gut because it avoids the stomach acid.

In the milk-fed rats, Firmicutes and Lactobacillus were more abundant than in rats fed with yogurt, while yogurt-fed rats had more Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Parabacteroides. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5374383/

 

[Abrin]

I'm not a fan of yeast colonizing the gut.

That is your prerogative

Just like it is my it is my prerogative to be a big fan of it since it was something that has been hugely helpful for me.

 

[Abrin]

I just wanted to update now I've been drinking kefir for a couple of months. I've found it noticeably beneficial and will definitely be carrying on with it.

I am so happy to hear that the bad side effects that you were having were only temporary.

 

[godlovesatrier]

Great news! I continue with the kefir intermittently. Sadly all my weakness and lethargy has returned recently after very minor exertion (leaving the house for small trips). I seem to be almost (90%) housebound now, although I guess I was like this last year, I still had the energy for bigger trips once a week or fortnight. I've definitely got worse the last 2 years, not got a clue why and no way to resolve it. Suffice to say kefir isn't helping with that. I've had a strange rash on my body for 4 weeks now, on my third anti fungal/abx cream. So it hasn't helped my skin bacteria per say.

 

[cogent_thought]

@godlovesatrier

I am to continue drinking kefir as part of gut modulation to attempt to grow space for a more helpful gut environment. Make it home made with raw milk and I believe it's many times more effective and broad spectrum than pasteurized store bought. Also, you can't create kefir grains as its hypothesized they grew/grow in sheeps intestines and have been cultured/cloned ever since.

Have you done any other gut testing? biomesight may be worth a shot, it's not too expensive.

 

[Aerowallah]

Histamines are definitely an issue...but I found there were fewer histamine producing bacteria in my Kefir than in Kimchee, for example, which makes me itchy in minutes. For those trying Kefir, the store bought powdered grains kind is pretty weak, and does not have the beneficial yeasts of the live-culture that you make yourself. At a certain stage in my healing it was a miracle food, and I have been using raw milk with it for years now. The thing that helped my histamines most was reducing my folate.

 

[pete_parker]

The genuine made from kefir grains is the best. The packet stuff is junk.

 

[lch1]

Hi, has anyone got any experience drinking kefir? How did you find it?

I'd heard some good things, so I got some grains and started making some using whole milk. The last two days I've started having just a little bit - 1 tbsp a day. It's given me a bit of stomach pain and I've been really thirsty and felt a bit "off" - but I believe this can be common to start with, and could actually be a good thing as it means it's killing off the bad bacteria? I've read you should just carry on taking it, the symptoms will die down and then you can gradually increase the amount.

So I need to decide whether to stick with it - to help me decide I wondered if anyone else has tried kefir, and if you found it helpful or harmful?

Thanks.

Every time I try Kefir, I have a bad reaction to it. I become very fatigued, bloated, and mentally foggy. Because of my super-charged immune system (thank you MTHFR), it kicks me into a bad state. I stop, and a couple of days later I'm ok. Kefir is bacteria and my immune system sees it as an attack. Someday, I may try it again, but only an eighth of a cup at a time. There is some scientific research that concluded that these bacteria grow too much in the small intestines for people (especially older) when they should be doing that in the large intestines. That made sense to me. By the way, some resources say that sticking with it will ultimately reduce the side effects, but I'm not willing. I'll try another route.

 

[Aerowallah]

Timing is everything! All the building blocks of my (80% ?) recovery were stumbling blocks when incorporated too soon or in the wrong order...

 

[BrightCandle]

What I was advised in the beginning with Kefir was to start really slowly. I started on a teaspoon and I didn't move up to 300ml for maybe a month. Pretty much everyone who starts Kefir fast ends up with at the least some bowel discomfort and Diarrhea, but there is every chance of getting a severe immune response especially with a leaky gut already. Go a lot smaller and throw most of the kefir you make out, also start with very few grains so that the early mixture is a lot more milky and a lot less yogurt. It may be its still not tolerable in any useful quantity of course but it was the advise I received from the kefir subreddit and that worked out for me.

I seem to be lucky that while I had severe (life threatening) constipation I do not have substantial immune response to potential threats, certainly not anymore so depending on where your gut and condition is Kefir might just be too much even if it would help the gut.

 

[Aerowallah]

No discomfort for me initially, but then I did a couple years of coffee enemas before I tried Kefir and that brings systemic inflammation WAY down over time. A lifetime of yogurt probably helped, but yogurt is pretty benign and doesn't have the beneficial yeasts in live-culture kefir which, when you introduce them to your pathogenic yeasts in your gut can definitely cause Herx. You can also start with powdered culture or store bought Kefir which is a lot weaker than the live culture I make. Then not all grains are the same. The culture in kimchi makes me severely itchy and puts me into histamine overload unlike my strong kefir...sometimes you have to try different cultures to get the right mix of strains you respond better to, even IF you start with small doses which is wise.

 

[BrightCandle]

The culture in kimchi makes me severely itchy

Likewise, I got a lot of spots early on from Kimchi, took a lot longer to get over it and I should have gone slower with it but it took a while to realise it was the Kimchi. It has passed since I moved to a different brand.