Janine,

Your thread is of some interest to me as I am weaning off antibiotics and trying to incorporate more natural probiotics into my diet along the lines of what you mentioned.

I eat turkey kielbasa frequently and should prepare it more often with sauerkraut. I do occasionally make a Polish dish with sauerkraut that I grew up eating, called Bigos, which is basically a Hunter's Stew:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigos

I usually make it with pork ribs which I char on the grill first and then cook in a crockpot with a high grade sauerkraut and barley.

i usually eat two fat free Activia yogurts in the morning for breakfast. If you or anyone else has a better suggestion on probiotic yogurts, let me know.

I should note I have not had any luck at all taking probiotics purely therapeutically for pouchitis. The only things that have worked are antibiotics and now Remicade, which has enabled me to reduce the antibiotic dosages. However I think for the long term health of the pouch we all should vigilant and proactive about consuming natural probiotics like you are.

Good luck-

I've been making my own yogurt  (scd) and believe it's been helpful.

Janine,

I think that the problem may not be what you are eating or not eating but your hormones (which will not be effected in any way by a probiotic diet)

They can trigger all sorts of changes in your body from ovulation to your period and that may be the problem.

We had an interesting thread going in the women's section of this forum on periods and pouches...from gas, to cramping, pouchitisy feeling to feeling like your uterus was going to explode or drop to the floor...on through to a dozen other reccurent problems.

It turned out that an elimination diet around my period was the only help for me...I did well on fruit juice and homemade somothies, soups, broths and light proteins...no sugars or carbs. (fine, dark chocolate!)

It was my pouch friendly/period friendly diet.

Bananas were my friend, so was natural peanut butter.

Yoghurt (not the sweetened kind) helped but not as much as I thought it would...keeping the diary to a minimum was a good thing...

If this change is since you stopped taking hormones than it is very likely that it is more hormone related and less pouchitis related...especially if it calms down after your periods.

Sharon

Thanks, Sharon! I definitely suspect hormones, and was *so* hoping I'd go back to "normal" after getting the IUD removed. I think you're right, I'll just have to be more diligent of watching myself when I'm in that mid-cycle danger zone. I just went on cipro for the 2nd time and it helped immediately, but I don't want to have to take it every month if I can help it!

In an effort to boost my natural probiotic consumption, I had two sauerkraut meals this week, one with kielbasi, the other with pork.

I bought a new sauerkraut brand I never tried before, called Saverne.  It was quite good, made with craft beer and a little on the sweet side.  I Hungarianized the sauerkraut as I had seen my mother do many times, by adding a dollop of sour cream and paprika to it, and then the meat, and letting it all simmer together.  It's very good - and a truly underrated but important part of any J Pouch diet.

Janine, 

I see a ND regularly and I have always used Wild oregano oil and Grapefruit seed extract for antibiotics. I also use a probiotic from Dr. Dadamo (blood type diet) who makes specific probiotics for your blood type. I have seen good results taking 2 capsules 2x a day. I feel if we constantly take cipro or regular antibiotics it will always distrupt our delicate GI systems bacteria. 

Kim