Posted by bleauberry on June 3, 2009, at 18:34:01
In reply to Probiotics for anxiety, posted by Trotter on May 30, 2009, at 3:05:40
Thanks Larry for the tip on Kirkmans brand. I was looking at that and thinking of ordering. I have been using the Renew Life brand from Whole Foods Market, the one called Critical Care which is 50 billion units of 10 strains in each enteric coated capsule. That is a potent enough strength to crowd out enough yeast to cause a mild Herx response. Anything less really isn't enough. 35 billion did nothing. Most common brands are only a few billion units, which is basically useless except for a healthy person to maintain health. Not nearly enough to treat an illness though. If interested, read on...
The following three conditions all involve yeast problems, intestinal problems, and immune problems. Depression, fatigue, and brain fog are almost always the most noticeable symptoms:
1) Yeast
2) Metals (mercury)
3) LymeWhile metals or Lyme would appear the worst, I was surprised to find yeast is by far the heaviest burden on me. I ahve (mispselling left unedited to show the brain fog :-) all three and on a rotating basis treat all three. I could probably live with the Lyme and metals, but yeast is devastating. Of them all, the top over riding symptom for me is depression. Of all the treatments I have taken for depression, the ones that had me feeling the best, by a long shot, were not psychiatric drugs. And that is why I preach so often at pbabble to look outside the box of psychiatry if things aren't going well. There is something else going on.
Doctors don't know the stuff, specialists are the worst to see, and psychiatrists are fairly impotent but do get lucky sometimes.
The problem is, there isn't much outward sign of yeast, other than the depression and brain fog stuff. The toxins they secrete are quite powerful. But unseen. All you or your doctor sees is "depression".
It ties into this thread because probiotics are one of the strategies in a multipronged approach to restore intestinal integrity, immune integrity, and mood. Probiotics are helpful for all three of the above conditions. I have even seen a child psychiatrist where one of his primary weapons against depression is Nystatin, an antiyeast med.
The problem is that most people do not understand the whole picture. Taking a pill a day of a strong probiotic is not very therapeutic. In illnesses, it requires as much as 10 times the dose stated on the bottle. But any dose is better than none.
The other thing is time. It takes a long time to repair things. Not days or weeks. It takes several months.
The other thing is sugar. Yeast and all anti-probiotic organisms thrive on sugar. They can remultiply faster than you can slow them down if they keep getting the fuel they need. For any probiotic therapy to work strong, it needs to have a low/no sugar diet, at least for the first few weeks. That means none of the so-called "s's" my LLMD spelled out to me...sugar, sucrose, sucrolose, splenda. Anything with those on the ingredient label have to be avoided, and all ingredient labels have to be read. Some advocate going as far as eliminatinig all fruits, juices, grains, and some sugary vegetables. That is probably the world's most demanding diet I've ever heard of. I think eliminating the 4 s's and limiting the other things is good enough, but again, takes time.
The final thing is, killing the anti-probiotic organisms. And then allowing their damage to the intestinal walls and immune system to heal. That's where the probiotics really shine. Again, time. Persistence. To kill them, one can starve them with the strictest diet, or one can take the drug Nystatin, or any number of herbs are potent against them, including Pau D'Arco, high dose garlic, Grapefruit Seed Extract, Caprilic Acid, Oregeno Oil, and Black Walnut Hull tincture. Don't be fooled, these herbs are really potent antimicrobials. Seriously potent. And yet somehow spare the good guys. For different people, which herb works best varies. As with all treatments, trial and error.
In any case, this thread is about probiotics for healing disease. I just wanted to say that probiotics in normal doses as a stand-alone strategy is not likely to do a whole lot. There will probably be some noticeable gains over time. But to make huge progress with staying power, a multpronged attack is needed.
And through it all, if there really is a problem that probiotics are needed for, you will know it very clearly by way of the famous Herxheimer reaction. That is, if you are indeed killing a bunch of bad guys, you will feel real bad for a short time ranging from a few days to a few weeks. During that time, your body is flooded with the toxins and corpses of those things. Best bet is to be less aggressive in treatment and go a bit more gentle.
Keep the Herx reaction tolerable. A Herx is recognizable as increased fatigue, often debilitating, increased brain fog, worsened depression, aches and pains, flu-like. But unlike the flu, the Herx is actually a good thing because it is solidly diagnostic as well as an indication healing is underway.
But if you are taking a normal dose of some probiotic without any of the other strategies tied into it, you won't have a Herx and your treatment will be non-conclusive, non-diagnostic, and you will likely come away from it saying probiotics don't work. At the very least, I think people should approach this with the attitude..."I want a Herx reation because that is a diagnosis no doctor can do in a lab, and it is a huge cause of psychiatric illness...I want to see if I have this and either rule it in or rule it out". To do that though, a daily dose probiotic is useless.
Can pro-biotic anti-yeast treatments work against stubborn treatment resistant depression and anxiety? Definitely without question, yes. That's why treatment resisted the more conventional approaches. They were just so off target as to not stand much of a chance. For a brain under assault by toxins, slowing itself down as a defense, throwing more serotonin at it is kind of like pissing in the wind.
If you are taking a bunch of probiotics, more than on the bottle's label, upwards of 50 billion units or more per day, skipping sugar, and taking some kind of antiyeast herb or med, and you don't feel anything bad from it, well, then you don't need probiotics for your disease. Your disease is from something else.
poster:bleauberry
thread:898433
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20090410/msgs/899263.html