Probiotics or VSL#3

where is the best place to purchase this? Internet?

sounds good, I'll try costco or BJ'S. Thanks!!!!

The Costco near me doesn't carry VSL#3 but thanks for the tip anyway.

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Alabama.

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When it comes to probiotics, you have to do some trial and error. Granted, most of the store stuff is garbage. Culturelle and VSL-3 have some studies behind them, definitely. A company that makes a very high quality probiotic is in California called 'customprobiotics.com' but it is expensive and needs refrigerated shipping (as should most any high quality probiotic). I use Primal Defense alot and it seems to be pretty potent even without refrigeration.

But the bottom line is you have to do some trial and error and see what helps. One person's wonder cure can be another's poison i.e.a ctually cause flaring- so always start off small, although donlt give uop too quick in case it's just a matter of acclimatizing. If you can tolerate homemade (incubated long enough to have almost no lactose, that is) yogurt, it is a very cost effective way to get good flora down there- again a big IF being can you tolerate the dairy.

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Pancolitis dx'd 1986, full med-free remission 88-97

Well, it doesn't seem so effective for me the way it was earlier on, a few years ago. In those days it seemed to quiten my bowels a bit, and help the stool form a little. Basically it was a little bit of a UC symptom dampener for me. Nowadays, not as much and perhaps not at all. I know there is something to be said for the idea that, in flares, probiotics can sometimes do more harm then good if used in high doses, because in high doses than can be irritating to a raw, bleeding gut. They may be most effective in low to moderate doses to help keep one in remission. In remission, or when I am "simmering" - which is the term I use for a remission that still has lots of little, multi-day "mini-flares" (loose stools or D that last afor a few days and then improve, without blood) here and there and/or gut pain wuthout other symptoms - I find that PD and other decent probiotics make me less vulnerable to this instability of mini-flares- and mini-flares are less likely to turn into "maxi" flares.

Honestly, that is the biggest benefit I find from probiotics - not so much combatting flares as keeping things more stable, less unlikely to spiral out of control. My intuition is that this is due to the "competition" that probiotic bacteria have for food sources - decomposing food in other words- that is generated by digestion. They compete against pathogenic bacteria that play a role in our flaring. In "normies"- those without IBD, these pathogenic are inconsequential.

But I have to bear in mind that in flares, more doesn't always mean better- it can just produce a more acidy gut that "burns" the raw, inflamed tissue even more. So sometimes, in a flare, if I overdo the probiotics as I am apt to do in an effort to avoid boosting prednisone, I may actually have to back off probiotics to reduce the flare intensity a bit.

In summary, some good probiotics seem better than nothing, but because even probiotics can upset our super-sensitive guts, it is something that can easily be overdone.

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Pancolitis dx'd 1986, full med-free remission 88-97