Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives NSD and diet-related; AS, Low-carb diet, Probiotics and Ebringer

Hi Zark

"Primal Defense" and Swansons" probiotics do have long lists of strains but no quantities are mentioned. Have these capsules given you better results than the standard ones at the pharmacist, like "Inner Health", which just have only Lactobacillus Acidophilus and Bifidobacterium Lactis, but which specify the quantity?

I am allergic to antibiotics, so can't take them, but it just about makes me sick and want to cry when I read this kind of stuff about doctors and the medical world.

Antibiotics can have side effects, it's true, but compared to the side effects of other drugs!!!!! I would consider antibiotics medicine while most other drugs are drugs!

>> "Primal Defense" and Swansons" probiotics do have long lists of strains but no >> quantities are mentioned

I don't have a bottle handy, but yes definitely there is a smaller number of each strain... so the sum total of critters will be in the same range. The usual stuff that I get from supermarkets and health shops never had any noticeable effect on me.

I am wondering whether it might be best to use pulsed doses in case you get used to it and it stops helping (as I think you mentioned before)

“ ... it just about makes me sick and want to cry when I read this kind of stuff about doctors and the medical world”

When I first joined this forum 9 years ago, I became very aware of the diet debate with those on the pro-diet side, such as DragonSlayer, maintaining everyone with AS would improve their condition by using the diet, although some would take much longer than others. Mainstream medicine regarded diet as basically irrelevant.

Once I overcame my symptoms and went into remission, I took no interest in the subject of AS (as far as I was concerned I didn’t have it) and did not return to this forum until this year. I wondered at the time whether things had moved on. Had mainstream medicine accepted diet was a factor in at least some cases? Had the pro-diet faction modified their claims? I now know from my doctors that nothing has changed in the former and from John’s post there has been no change in the latter either.

Doesn’t the situation call for a change in position of the pro-diet people? They may well be right that the diet can improve all patients if they stay on it long enough, but for those who will take many months for this to happen, it may be impossible to prove. If concentration was made on just the few who are very diet sensitive, perhaps by approaching a young doctor trying to make his mark, perhaps something could be achieved. When my symptoms are at their worst, I’m sure I can change my ESR significantly within a day or less by taking lots of carbs.

If the case for diet could be proved for the minority it would be the thin edge of the wedge for that to be extended. It would mean that every GP and rheumatologist would have to take diet seriously, at least to determine whether patients were in that minority.

Sorry about that – I’ll get of my soap-box now.

OK, I’ll take your advice that you had better results on “Primal Defense” and Swansons probiotics.

I doubt whether their labelling would be acceptable in Australian pharmacies. You say “ .. the sum total of critters will be in the same range” but how do you know that? Figures in the millions instead of the billions would meet the label description. Not that I have any idea how many, or what kind, are really needed!

[Why does it take 20,000 sperm to fertilize one egg? Being male, they won’t stop to ask directions.] I don’t think it’s the same, though, with bacteria.