Any experience with Florastor probiotics?
(deactivated member)
on 3/24/11 5:51 am
on 3/24/11 5:51 am
Hi All,
The thing with C. diff is the spoors. If you have a C. diff infestation (I will explain the use of that word as opposed to infection later) if you have it you are shedding spoors all over the place. You take your flagyl (aka "the gut sweeper") and feel good because the C. diff population is greatly diminished or eliminated during the AB treatment. Treatment ends and your gut is essentially de-populated. The spoors in your environment immediately re-establish a new population of C. diff in a gut with little or no competition from other bugs. They take off and run amok. This is true of other gut pathogens which are more aggressive than the beneficial species. There are in excess of 600 identified species which are normal residents of the human gut. Some are good, some bad and some a bit of both.
I use the term infestation because I feel the term infection should be reserved for full blown C. diff disease. This is a potentially life threatening condition in the elderly or immune compromised. In fact I have recently read that it has now surpassed MRSA as the most commonly hospital acquired infection. For most of us the problem is not that severe. In my opinion the easiest way to tell if your problem is mild to moderate C. diff infestation is the foul odor. Gas and diarrhea alone are not that strong an indication alone. Poor dietary choices (fat, simple carbs and artificial sweeteners) and/or general disbiosis can cause these symptoms.
So back to the spoors. These guys are very persistent and and hearty. I have read that they can last a month or longer on dry surfaces such as refrigerator door handles, counters, cutting boards or what have you. The only thing that effectively kills them is a 10% bleach solution.
So my suggested solution is as follows, depending on the severity of your individual problem. In milder cases just bombarding the C. diff's with S. boulardii in combination with a good high potency probiotic (the more species the better) may be enough. Research has shown that therapeutic dosages are are in the range of 20+ billion colony forming units (cfu's) per day, or more, for adults. I personally have experimented on myself with doses of over 200b with no ill-effect (call me Dr Jekyll). Once a healthy population of bacteria is established the boulardii (non colonizing) can be eliminated. This may take a month or more. Everybody is different. In more severe or recurrent infestations flagyl may be necessary . This between you and your PCP. The boulardii can, and I think should, be taken simultaneously. At the end of the AB's, or just before, introduce the second probiotic product while continuing the boulardii. You may need to continue the combination of the two products for a while. A month perhaps. The Primal Defense Ultra provides an adequate dose of appropriate species. Florastor is just boulardii at I believe ~5b cfu's per but the labeling is a bit unclear. More on labeling later. The comment was made that PDU was hard on some systems. PDU is manufactured using fermented grasses (different than most others). This can be an issue for some. Another side effect of starting a new probiotic product is an increase in gas and "rumbling". This is usually transitory and will pass as the gut and it's residents adapt.
De-contamination with bleach is your option. The spoors gain access via a fecal oral contact. Hand washing is important and if you want to do the bleach thing all surfaces around the kitchen and door handles throughout the house. C. diff is a normal occupant of the gut but held under control by competition. Others in your home probably have some on board. You can never completely eliminate all these guys from your environment.
Regarding tap water. Most tap water is chlorinated to kill bacteria. Taking probiotics with tap water can only diminish the effectiveness, how much I can't say. I suggest reverse osmosis units or bottled water for this purpose. I personally have an RO unit under the kitchen sink. I use it for everything in the kitchen except dish washing where killing bacteria is a good thing. As to bottled water I must say plastic bottles are becoming a huge environmental issue and their use should be minimized if not eliminated. Check out:
http://www.theplastiki.com/
In regard to labeling I must say that this is another huge issue. Some labels give the contents at the time of manufacture. Some other labels give a guaranteed content at the end of shelf life. Some other labels give the content in terms of milligrams (mg). I feel the only honest labeling is content in cfu's at the end of shelf life. The refrigerated products have a far lower rate of decline than the non refrigerated products. In a previous post this was pointed out. On one part of the PDU label they claim 15b cfu's and on another part they claim far less. That would reflect the difference at the time of manufacture vs the end of shelf life. I personally use a refrigerated product that guarantees 25b at the end of shelf life. As far as the inconvenience I feel that this is not as big an issue as some may think. These do not spoil like mayo in your tuna salad. If you want to take a weekend away two or three days of dosage would do just fine warm. There is another aspect to labeling that I would like to comment on. There is a relatively new Fed standard in manufacturing and labeling that we should be aware of. It is the Good Manufacturing Practices. See:
http://www.supplementquality.com/stdregs/GMPs.html
This is important as there is always packaging and marketing flim flam. This is perhaps found more commonly in the world of nutritional supplements than other other markets. My rule of thumb is that the more advertised a product is the less product you get for your money as you are paying for that advertising as well as the product. I would rather pay for product.
Hope this helps.
The thing with C. diff is the spoors. If you have a C. diff infestation (I will explain the use of that word as opposed to infection later) if you have it you are shedding spoors all over the place. You take your flagyl (aka "the gut sweeper") and feel good because the C. diff population is greatly diminished or eliminated during the AB treatment. Treatment ends and your gut is essentially de-populated. The spoors in your environment immediately re-establish a new population of C. diff in a gut with little or no competition from other bugs. They take off and run amok. This is true of other gut pathogens which are more aggressive than the beneficial species. There are in excess of 600 identified species which are normal residents of the human gut. Some are good, some bad and some a bit of both.
I use the term infestation because I feel the term infection should be reserved for full blown C. diff disease. This is a potentially life threatening condition in the elderly or immune compromised. In fact I have recently read that it has now surpassed MRSA as the most commonly hospital acquired infection. For most of us the problem is not that severe. In my opinion the easiest way to tell if your problem is mild to moderate C. diff infestation is the foul odor. Gas and diarrhea alone are not that strong an indication alone. Poor dietary choices (fat, simple carbs and artificial sweeteners) and/or general disbiosis can cause these symptoms.
So back to the spoors. These guys are very persistent and and hearty. I have read that they can last a month or longer on dry surfaces such as refrigerator door handles, counters, cutting boards or what have you. The only thing that effectively kills them is a 10% bleach solution.
So my suggested solution is as follows, depending on the severity of your individual problem. In milder cases just bombarding the C. diff's with S. boulardii in combination with a good high potency probiotic (the more species the better) may be enough. Research has shown that therapeutic dosages are are in the range of 20+ billion colony forming units (cfu's) per day, or more, for adults. I personally have experimented on myself with doses of over 200b with no ill-effect (call me Dr Jekyll). Once a healthy population of bacteria is established the boulardii (non colonizing) can be eliminated. This may take a month or more. Everybody is different. In more severe or recurrent infestations flagyl may be necessary . This between you and your PCP. The boulardii can, and I think should, be taken simultaneously. At the end of the AB's, or just before, introduce the second probiotic product while continuing the boulardii. You may need to continue the combination of the two products for a while. A month perhaps. The Primal Defense Ultra provides an adequate dose of appropriate species. Florastor is just boulardii at I believe ~5b cfu's per but the labeling is a bit unclear. More on labeling later. The comment was made that PDU was hard on some systems. PDU is manufactured using fermented grasses (different than most others). This can be an issue for some. Another side effect of starting a new probiotic product is an increase in gas and "rumbling". This is usually transitory and will pass as the gut and it's residents adapt.
De-contamination with bleach is your option. The spoors gain access via a fecal oral contact. Hand washing is important and if you want to do the bleach thing all surfaces around the kitchen and door handles throughout the house. C. diff is a normal occupant of the gut but held under control by competition. Others in your home probably have some on board. You can never completely eliminate all these guys from your environment.
Regarding tap water. Most tap water is chlorinated to kill bacteria. Taking probiotics with tap water can only diminish the effectiveness, how much I can't say. I suggest reverse osmosis units or bottled water for this purpose. I personally have an RO unit under the kitchen sink. I use it for everything in the kitchen except dish washing where killing bacteria is a good thing. As to bottled water I must say plastic bottles are becoming a huge environmental issue and their use should be minimized if not eliminated. Check out:
http://www.theplastiki.com/
In regard to labeling I must say that this is another huge issue. Some labels give the contents at the time of manufacture. Some other labels give a guaranteed content at the end of shelf life. Some other labels give the content in terms of milligrams (mg). I feel the only honest labeling is content in cfu's at the end of shelf life. The refrigerated products have a far lower rate of decline than the non refrigerated products. In a previous post this was pointed out. On one part of the PDU label they claim 15b cfu's and on another part they claim far less. That would reflect the difference at the time of manufacture vs the end of shelf life. I personally use a refrigerated product that guarantees 25b at the end of shelf life. As far as the inconvenience I feel that this is not as big an issue as some may think. These do not spoil like mayo in your tuna salad. If you want to take a weekend away two or three days of dosage would do just fine warm. There is another aspect to labeling that I would like to comment on. There is a relatively new Fed standard in manufacturing and labeling that we should be aware of. It is the Good Manufacturing Practices. See:
http://www.supplementquality.com/stdregs/GMPs.html
This is important as there is always packaging and marketing flim flam. This is perhaps found more commonly in the world of nutritional supplements than other other markets. My rule of thumb is that the more advertised a product is the less product you get for your money as you are paying for that advertising as well as the product. I would rather pay for product.
Hope this helps.
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