Pred, antibiotics, probiotics and a tooth extraction

Thanks Diana that is very encouraging.   Probably the waiting is the worst aspect of it !

Thank you for your good wishes Anhaga.  Do you mean dont bother to take the probiotics or probiotic food at the same time of day as the antibiotics ?   At present I am taking the probiotic pill in the morning at the start of breakfast, and the first antibiotic half way through breakfast.  My other breakfast meds are fitted in around them !! 

Antibiotics always upset my stomach, so my doc recommends the probiotics.  I have yoghurt every day as well.   

Roll on next Thursday !

Your antibiotic will kill off the good bacteria in the probiotic.  I suggest giving the probiotics time to leave your stomach and be further along in the gut before siccing the antibiotics on them!   However there is something called prebiotics, which are the foods which support health of the microbes.  I think those are, basically, unrefined foods like fresh vegetables and unrefined grains, but not sure, better google it, and it can only do good to be eating those anyway.  

Good idea, I will check it out.  Thanks Anhaga

Root canals are horrid.   You have to keep your mouth open for such a long time, its no wonder that you started to have PMR pain in your jaw.  I think most people dread a visit to the dentist.  I wonder if its because as children it is used as a threat that if we dont clean our teeth properly or eat too many sweets we will have to see the dentist and have a filling !!

If the gastritis is due to the pred tablet itself irritating the stomach lining it probably doesn't make a lot of difference but this paper

Potential role of probiotics in the management of gastric ulcer by GHALIA KHODER et al

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4906699/

discusses the role of probiotics in reducing inflammation in general as well as gastritis. The evidence is limited but it does appear that they will do much the same job as a PPI in preventing the damage done by stress, which you'd think is probably the same as done by pred once it is in the bloodstream.

You obviously know about the probiotic yoghurts that have added probiotic bacteria but you can also buy them as capsules from the chemist or health food shops and they tend to have far more - the amounts in dairy products are relatively small in comparison. One lady on here was told to take probiotic capsules by her gastroenterologist after gall bladder surgery that left her very unwell. Within a couple of months she was much better and swears by them. She was told to take a particular one - and it is quite expensive - but she says it is worth every penny. The doctor almost apologised she couldn't have them on the NHS - and to be honest, I'd bet a lot of doctors just poo-poo the concept of probiotics being serious medicine!

It's ranitidine that I'm on.Thanks for the tip about the tablet form of probiotics I'll look into it

My mate uses one called vsl No3 - it is made in Italy and comes highly recommended. According to Wiki it is prescribable - anywhere but the UK I suspect!!!

 

Won't let me tell you what it is!  Oh well...

 

I was started on a PPI several years ago for reflux and then became very prone to stomach upsets (havibg always had a ‘strong’ stomach). I started taking a pro-biotic and have had no upsets since.

I wonder if home made fermented foods would provide the required probiotics.

Almost certainly - made properly. Anhaga is probably the one to ask. Things like kefir are made with a specific culture. Sauerkraut is said to have a very very high count of benficial bacteria - google it to find articles - as a result of the bacteria that can survive in the environment created by the cabbage and salt. 

There is water kefir and milk ‘based’ kombucha. I brewed my own water kefir for a year or so. You have to tend and feed it everyday. It was lovely to drink though can’t say it was better than a good probiotic capsule. 

Fermented foods, including sauerkraut, are good for gut flora though I discovered that I'm intolerant of white cabbage. A shame- I really liked it.

Can you eat red cabbage? There is a sauerkraut website where she puts all sorts of things and had a picture of a pot of sauerkraut with red cabbage at the top - makersauerkraut point com. She does warn against using red cabbage at first - the leaves are tougher and take longer to ferment.

But was it maybe not the cabbage - but that you ate too much at the beginning and introduced too many good bacteria at one and your body rebelled?

I can sat other coloured cabbages, but I didn’t have much luck making sauerkraut. And unfortunately I don’t see red cabbage sauerkraut in my local shops. Could look online though.... I had some allergy/intolerance tests done as I had some suspect foods on my list, the test confirmed them and added more.

Have you looked at the site I mentioned? Word by word instructions...

I don't know anything about actually making these fermented foods as I'm very lucky to live near a Farmers' Market and one of the vendors is forever coming up with new and delicious home made (in their home) fermented foods and drinks.  I learned the hard way not to overdo sauerkraut when I first started eating it.  We still only have a small helping along with other veggies.  And there is always a warning given to people about to drink fermented tea (whose name begins with K) the first time to only have a couple of ounces.  The body adapts and then you can drink more.  When I had my babies I read that when a baby is first given yoghurt they are likely to have a wakeful burbly sort of night although I don't remember if that actually happened. 

A site called culturesforhealth describes fermenting other veggies and fruit.

I have to say - I'm quite tempted!