What do probiotics do for you?

VSL helps me keep chronic pouchitis under good control. For a couple of years it was all I needed, but now I also have to take antibiotics full-time.

Bump

Since VSL mostly works to prevent pouchitis, its effect is very difficult for an individual to measure. If it's working perfectly you experience nothing, including little or no pouchitis. Fortunately it's been studied well enough to know that it seems to work reasonably well for that purpose.

I don't have pouchitis and luckily I haven't had it in a while. I mainly looking at taking it for digestive health. 

I think "digestive health" is a marketing term, and has no actual meaning.

Is that your opinion or a documented fact?

I think what Scott was referring to was that the terminology of digestive health is not used in the medical field (as it is vague), and is mostly used by those selling supplements. This is OK because supplements cannot be marketed to treat a disease.

Unfortunately, there are numerous probiotic products out there, some of better quality than others. Plus, few have been studied in those without a colon, which makes the workings of our gut very different. For the most part, any that were studied were useful for maintaining remission or preventing pouchitis, but not for treating inflammation. Some probiotics have been shown to be useful for IBS symptoms (which we can get too). 

Results are highly variable individually. Personally, I really wanted them to be useful. I tried a number of them (Culturelle, Align, Florastor, to name a few), without any noticeable difference when taking them. Still, I like to take them when traveling (hoping to assist with the novel bacteria I may encounter). But, after nearly 20 years, I still wound up needing frequent antibiotics for pouchitis, despite trying my faith in probiotics. Maybe my experimenting over the years delayed the onset of chronic pouchitis, or maybe it was the treatment of my inflammatory arthritis (Azulfidine and biologics). Who knows?

If you want to look at some data, here is an article for you:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0026894/

Jan

Thanks Jan!

After taking a probiotic for 4 days now, I don't think they are for me. I'm having more bm's and having difficulty emptying.