There's an article being shared around the ME/CFS blogosphere about a patient who essentially cured herself by deciding, after some research, to put herself on a regimen of high dose probiotics (about 300 billion CFUs per day.) It's pretty exciting if her results can be replicated. Even if one other person can replicate these results in themselves, I will be fairly ecstatic. Although, my excitement is tempered by the thought: someone must have tried this before, right? If we've never heard about anyone else being cured this way, maybe it's because it hasn't worked for others.
This article came to my attention at an interesting time for me because, two weeks ago, I decided to start ramping up my intake of probiotics for two reasons: (1) I continue to see a steady flow of new articles and research about the importance of gut flora to overall health, even from mainstream media (i.e. non-ME/CFS media), and (2) I read the blog of another ME/CFS patient who has had success taming candida with about 60 billion CFU's per day.
In the past, I had always found that I had trouble taking more than about 10 billion CFU's per day. I would feel inflamed and slightly flu-ish. But this time, using different brands and strains of probiotics that I selected more carefully, I have not had any trouble titrating up to 40 billion CFU's per day. So far there's been no dramatic improvement, but I'm hopeful. I don't think I will go as high as 300 billion like the author of the article, but I'm taking it day by day at this point.
I had a miraculous recovery last year after taking Rifaximin (gut antibiotic) for SIBO. After stopping the drug I took a good bit of quality probiotics to replenish and had a miraculous recovery for about a month. Was even jogging 2 miles a day....then BAM I rehearsed and went back to my tired old self. I suspected the recovery was from the antibiotics and that i can't take these forever. When I saw the article last week about the woman who recovered in probiotics I realized this could have been my solution to begin with. So I have new hope and am hitting the probiotics hard to see how it goes. Good luck to you!
ReplyDeleteGood luck to YOU Chris! I feel like we're both going to get better, it's just a matter to sticking with it and for research and medicine to keep advancing at the same time.
DeleteI know someone who is permanently on rifaxamin for CFS. If you can afford it (I think you can get a 2-week supply from Canada for $75 depending on location) it may be worth considering. It's used long-term in HE, which frequently has some overlap in cognitive symptoms with CFS.
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't looked at cfsremission.blogspot.com, Ken has a lot of great posts on probiotics and CFS.
I know someone who is permanently on rifaxamin for CFS. If you can afford it (I think you can get a 2-week supply from Canada for $75 depending on location) it may be worth considering. It's used long-term in HE, which frequently has some overlap in cognitive symptoms with CFS.
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't looked at cfsremission.blogspot.com, Ken has a lot of great posts on probiotics and CFS.