Sucess with homecultured yoghurt/high fibre!

We spend a lot of time talking about the bad news in this discussion group - here's the spot for the good news. If you've had c-diff and are now well, please tell us about it here.
ryan750
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Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2012 4:51 pm

Sucess with homecultured yoghurt/high fibre!

Postby ryan750 » Wed Apr 11, 2012 5:02 pm

Hi All, I absolutely felt compelled to sign up here and to share with you my story, but also a strategy i have found that WORKS!
My illness began in february 2011 when my mother (who was away at her sister’s deathbed in a Scottish hospital) called me to tell me she was suffering from diahrea but would be home soon. When she returned home i also began getting severe diahrea and then began researching online. I was aware of the disease C.Diff, also since i had just been trained about it the past month since starting a new job at a nursing home. We also got word from my mother’s other sister that the hospital she visited was known for c.diff outbreaks. So i went to the doctor and mum and i were given metronidazole for a week which cured my mum but i was not cured. I tried again, which was hell since the medication is totally psychotic, but still had pain, frequent bowel movement, foul smelling stool, lots of mucous on the stool, weakness and fatigue. When i went to the doctor he basically said there was nothing he could do further until c.diff is confirmed by stool but i had already tried 4 times to have my stool cultured but each time the sample was mishandled, rejected on grounds of unsuitability or because no name was on sample etc. So i researched what to do and then i found probiotics.. which helped somewhat but were too expensive for me. THEN i read about the best natural probiotic which is HOME CULTURED YOGHURT.
The reason why home cultured yoghurt is the perfect probiotic is because of the massive number of bacteria. The probiotics you buy in pills are in the region of 5 billion to 100 billion culture bacteria per pill, but these can be very expensive. Plain yogurt you buy from the store is low on bacteria culture levels because it is treated like a production line, they want these products shipped out fast so no time to allow for culturing, they leave it typically 4-6 hours to culture at body temperature. Whereas if you culture your own yoghurt you can have many TRILLIONS of cultures which absolutely blow out of the water anything you could buy in pill or sachet and its waaay cheaper. SOOOO i tried it and it REALLY helps me, but there is strict guidelines to follow which i will describe to help you maximise this potential benefit.
First i should tell you my theory and why you should try this. My problem appears to be of a bacterial one, most likely c.diff (although not officially confirmed) but it could be some other pathogen in the digestive tract which the yoghurt bacteria is forcing to retreat and starve due to competition for resources. Any of you could possibly have an undiagnosed bacterial pathogen causing you the problem and you should definitely try this to see if you notice any improvement.
I will now explain how i make my yoghurt, which is very simple and easy. Firstly i did some research and found that a very important probiotic bacteria is Bifidobacterium Longum which i deduced was very important because it is found in incredibly high numbers in infants. So, i went to my local supermarket and began checking labels of all the NATURAL YOGHURT or PLAIN YOGHURTS which might have mention of their probiotic culture content. It must be natural and you will know because the label will say its ingredient: MILK - and that is it, plus the bacteria species too. Luckily i found one which contains lactobacillus but crucially (i think) was this Bifidobacterium Longum and the brand is called Onken Biopot (UK). If you can't find the yoghurt with it in you can order a culture online or at a healthfood store you might get one... OR you can just culture from ANY natural yoghurt and i suspect you will gain much benefit.
So, now you have the culture you will need a large vacuum flask or thermos flask (i use a 1 litre one) and either a food or body thermometer. I just use a cheap body thermometer meant for the mouth.
What you do is fill a pan with some (preferably) store bought ORGANIC whole fat milk to the amount which will fill your thermos flask ( i go a little under to make sure there is room). Then put in a good couple large tablespoons of your natural yogurt or the starter culture you have and STIR WELL to make sure it incorporates and doesn’t get heated at the bottom of the pan. So, you want to GENTLY heat the milk and culture together slowly and regularly check the temperature until it reaches 37 degrees or so (body temperature). Whilst you are heating you should fill your waitng thermos flask with hot or recently boiled water and let it sit for a few minutes to warm through. Once your milk has reached at least 37 degrees (i have let it go up to 40 degrees by accident and it has been fine, dont be too worried about it) then transfer the milk and culture into the thermos flask and put it in a place which is not drafty or cold. You want to leave this to culture for at LEAST 30 hours, 36 is better i find and especially for your very first culture i would recommend 36 hours at least. I will warn you that your very first culture might not be that strong because you are starting from scratch.. it is your next batch which will get you going, so don't be discouraged from first try.
Once you have allowed your own HOMEMADE yoghurt to culture for the period you wanted you should transfer it to a sealable container - I use the yoghurt pot i bought which is 1kg=1ltr. I rewash this pot after each batch and it holds my next batch in full, so is handy. Put the batch into the fridge so that it will stay fresh and i find that it develops in flavour and gets stronger as the days go on.
In fact, something i would suggest is in fact to have a good few mouthfuls of your yoghurt before you put it in the fridge to cool down. This is good because the bacteria are fully ready to work at body temperature but the only thing is that warm yoghurt isnt that pleasant but it will help. Or you can wait till it cools and is more pallatable.
NOW, there are strict rules i have learned to abide by upon taking this yoghurt for it to work, believe me its been crazy what i have noticed through trial and error. The first thing i found was that i have to have the yoghurt BEFORE anything else enters my mouth in the morning, including water. I REALLY recommend this. As soon as you wake up, go to the fridge and have at least 2 mouthfuls of the yogurt before anything else, i would suggest 4 or as many as you can stomach (more than 6 is unnecessary) for those who are very ill and just starting out. I thought this might have been important because by making the yogurt the first thing the bacteria in your gut come into contact with each day.. it helps fight them because they are hungry in the morning like we all are and are at their weakest. I just drink the yogurt straight out of the container because im lazy and i have become so sick of this illness that i just want that yogurt to make me better. Then after you have had the yogurt have whatever food you usually eat for breakfast, but i did notice that leaving the yogurt to work for 5 minutes by itself helped too in the early stages. For those starting out i would then recommend you eat some of this yogurt about 4-5 times a day, now i only need it 2-3 times a day after a year of it.
The next CRUCIAL tip is that when you come to make your next batch of yogurt, which will be 3-5 days since you last made some, you MUST use some of your old batch as your culture. This is because it is potent with bacteria unlike the starter culture from the yogurt you bought in the supermarket. If you try, like i recently have been doing, to make your yogurt from scratch each time it will always fall short. I would recommend starting from scratch at least once every few months though, maybe even once a couple months because the bacteria you have created might now have become changed, for instance through heating too high you encourage a heat resistance strain that isnt so good at its job etc. So yeh, use a couple spoonfuls again from your batch and remake some yogurt. This is where scheduling gets important, you are going to need to save some yogurt for your next batch and you will have to wait at least 30-36 hours for the next batch to be ready (plus cooling time), so i now try to make a new batch when im about halfway done with the current one.
The way i tend to have my yogurt is before i eat something like lunch or dinner, ill quickly gulp a couple mouthfuls whilst im cooking in the kitchen, just because its handy.
What i have found is that it drastically reduces the amount of pain, fatigue, weakness and foulness in my stools. I noticed when i was culturing from scratch or i miss a dosing in the morning OR i use up all my yogurt and have none left, i would get all these symptoms back and i would be miserable. Even with the yogurt i still get milder symptoms and i am now going to go to a new doctor to explain what i am going through for the past year. It is absolutely insane i have to make this yogurt but honestly it isnt any trouble, i can make a new batch in 10 minutes, its so simple. PLEASE try this, all who are having gastro trouble.
The taste of the yogurt isnt very appetising really because it is just a bit sour BUT i see it as my medicine, and actually it is really healthy because it is full of metabolites, calcium, protein so it is all good. JUST get that yogurt down, even pinch your now if you have to. I plead with you that you try this because it really works, the science is there. The only alternative for me is a fecal transplant which is hard to get doctors to do. Im going to the doctor soon, will let you know. I would be most happy to help and hear from you. Best of luck everyone, we can get through this!
Also, a couple other things. Clostridia seem to get worse with meat and fish and in particular PORK. I would say to eliminate pork from your diet because this always makes it worse for me. Also, Salmon isnt doing well with me either. SO yeh, no pork or salmon. But chicken is fine, beef is okay too but dont go wild with red meats, every now and then.. especially if you need iron make sure u get red meat regularly. VERY IMPORTANTLY, introduce high fibre foods into your diet if not already done. I have Bran Flakes for breakfast which is ALMOST an entire daily recommended allowance of fibre for one day AND WHOLEMEAL BREAD. This high fibre will feed the good bacteria but also keep everyhting moving along to get rid of the toxic waste.
Oh the other thing is, the reason why my mum was cured but i wasnt was because she had a backup of good bacteria whereas i had been on several courses of antiobiotics for the previous 2 years and WIPED OUT MY GUT flora. SO, AVOID antibiotics at all costs, unless you absolutely have to take them for a specific known infection, and try narrow spectrum ones to keep your good bacteria.
The other thing is that the reason we have to keep taking the yogurt and probiotics is because these bacteria wont stay in the gut and colonise permanantly (it is theorised) because it is only our original gut flora from birth which can maintain themselves in our guts because our immune system was PRIMED to them. So is why probiotic cultures do not stick around. But they go a hell of a long way to balancing things out and i read that C.Diff can live in the guts for up to 2 years, so plausibly i only have 10 months more to go with the yogurt till im totally better?? who knows. Hope this helps
Email to a sufferer:
Hi Joann, there are many things that the doctors are STILL unable to fully detect like unkown or tricky pathogens. One such pathogen called Clostridium Difficile is running rampant in hospitals and now spreading in the community creating so called "community acquired infections". The name of this clostridia is latin for "difficult" because it is incredibly difficult to isolate it, for example if you put some of it in a petri dish you would find it hard to culture them, grow them and study them. Therefore instead of looking directly for the clostridia the doctors look for the TOXINS that they create which are what make people feel ill. The problem is that the tests they use HALF of the time create FALSE negatives, meaning they are unable to detect the toxin. This is because the toxin begins to DEGRADE immediately a it leaves the body and cools down from body temperature. Therefore Thousands of people are being misdiagnosed as having this chronic, untreatable and PHANTOM condition the doctors like to call IRRITABLE BOWEL SYNDROME. Now, im sure some patients do have normal IBS, but some have C. Diff.
JOANN - what you MUST do, is follow the instructions i have for creating the most powerful treatment for this disease yourself in HOME CULTURED YOGHURT. You must leave it to culture for at least 36 hours at body temperature in a thermos flash and then you must eat a few spoonfuls of it BEFORE EVERY MEAL. I absolutely promise you that you will be fine if you do this. ALL of you please do this. Look above for my VERY long post detailing the process. Good luck everyone, i can’t believe how much better i am feeling now that i JUST LAST WEEK realised that for the past year i haven’t been culturing my yogurt for long enough and that i had to use some from the old batch as a starter culture each time. 36 hours, old batch culture starter, 2 mouthfuls before every meal.. most importantly, it has to be the VERY FIRST THING that enters your stomach in the morning. TRY it.
Follow up:
First you have to understand what is going on. The fact that dairy products are making you feel worse is probably because bacteria can use the sugars in dairy to multiply with. BUT if you eat the home cultured yoghurt which contains ITS own colony of GOOD bacteria, the bad bacteria in your guts will fight with the good bacteria to eat up the sugars in the yoghurt but because there will be soooo many trillions of GOOD bacteria in the home cultured yoghurt, the bad bacteria will die off because they can't fight all of the good bacteria. TRUST me joann, dont think of this as dairy, it is a medicine and it is nature's very own and very powerful. Please try this and ask your parents what they think. I have struggled through this since february 2011 and only now have gotten the hang of it. You should try this method to see if it helps and persevere with it too, give it a chance to work, like a few weeks making the yogurt every 3 or 4 days. Plain yoghurt like the one i describe how to make is also known to decrease the impact of other pathogens like Heliobacter Pylori and such, so it could fix your problem. Let me know if you have any success.

KateC
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Posts: 167
Joined: Mon Feb 14, 2011 3:49 am

Re: Sucess with homecultured yoghurt/high fibre!

Postby KateC » Mon Apr 16, 2012 1:04 am

thank you Ryan- alot of good info !!
I can't imagine going a year without a diagnosis or treatment.
Maybe you will be beter off in the long run treating as you have.

My kids bought me a yogurt maker which I was using but had a tough time getting
a soy or almond milk yogurt.
I've never been a fan of cows milk, even as a child...ick..
It did make wonderful yogurt with cows milk so I think I'll make a batch this week
and get back to it.
I have been eating store bought plain yogurt & drnking kefir.
and saurkraut-- yuck..

You might want to take a look at this website:
www.culturesforhealth.com
Tons if info there about making your own cultured food.
You can buy several different types of cultures there also & I believe
they will make custom combinations.
I didn't get that deep into it but I did buy cultures for vegan yogurt ( whihc did not work).
My son is making the Kombucha (?spelling) which is something that would be very good for us too.
There are many interesting videos there too- such as for making your own kefir.
YOu can make kefir out of water !

Good luck to you !
Kate

Kendall
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Posts: 2
Joined: Thu May 09, 2013 2:36 am

Re: Sucess with homecultured yoghurt/high fibre!

Postby Kendall » Wed Jun 19, 2013 2:27 am

Thank you for sharing the information about the homemade yogurt. I have been drinking homemade kefir which doesn't seem to help that much. I take probiotics but cannot afford to keep buying them. I wanted to share some information I found about a fecal transplant that can be done at home.

Details have been deleted as the direct advice given can be extremely dangerous.
NEVER try home infusions unless your donor has been screened
Roy (moderator)

A few months ago, I would never have believed that I would be writing about such a disgusting subject. However, it sounds easy and I think it would be worth a try. I hope this information helps someone.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Jun 19, 2013 5:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Dangerous advice


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