Just wondering what probiotics seem to be the best in treating pouchitis aside from VSL3. Looking for something somewhat affordable. Had my real first bout with pouchitis two weeks ago that responded very well with Levaquin. Now I want to start a regimen of probiotics to keep things in check. Currently, I've been taking Ultimate Flora Probiotic.
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You need one that is specifically made for j-pouchers
Is there one other than VSL3?
VSL is the only one that’s been well studied for pouchitis. The others tend to have a similar set of bacterial strains. Some people have reported good results with Align. One of the reasons VSL is so expensive is that it’s labeled for a *very* high dose of probiotic bacteria, which seems to be helpful in preventing pouchitis. When you are comparing the products the prices are only meaningful when comparing the same # of CFU (colony forming units, which is the same as “live bacterial cells”). So for example you could calculate the price per million CFU and work out the real price of the probiotic.
Just ordered ActivatedYou online. Cheaper than VSL but will try it for a while before I let you know
I agree with Scott. I have looked at quite a few probiotics that can be found in stores, and bacteria-for-bacteria, the price difference isn't that significant, except that sometimes the "cheaper" one actually works out much more expensive. I hope you have good results with ActivatedYou. I checked it out, and 30B x 30 doses is $70 (I assume US). By comparison, VSL#3 is 450B x 30 for $130 (that is Canadian, so a little less in US dollars, I assume). So for a little more than twice the price you get 15x the bacteria.
I've been taking 2x VSL#3 per day for the past couple of weeks. It is expensive, but it seems to be keeping me on track for now.
Good luck!
Karen