About Vancocin + Culturelle

[markjs]

Hi, I am a long time sufferer and I am on disability for other reasons. Trouble is to get off disability I really have to make solving my c-diff a priority, because much else health wise depends on it. So anyway, I have Medicare and Part-D, and I have state Medicaid to pick up the slack. I actually called my Part-D provider about paying for probiotics and was practically laughed at. I mean these guys have probably spent several thousands on Vancomycin, but won't give me a paltry $100 to prevent relapse!

So I went to the St. Vincent De Paul society and those wonderful people gave me a voucher for Safeway who carries and can order Culturelle, and I can get some yogurt and bleach and fiber, that I could not otherwise afford! I will never let anyone malign Catholics in my presence ever again! Religion aside these are good people, in the trenches helping people who need it!

Here's the kicker; one of the men who I met with was a microbiologist and nurse in the past, and had a lot of old school "knowledge", and concerns about taking probiotics at the same time I take Vancocin. It worked in my favor in that he knows about c-diff from working in a nursing home, and was familiar with the seriousness of c-diff, but he really was hesitant to sign off on me using Vancocin simultaneously with probiotics. This is contrary to what I seem to be able to learn about c-diff, and it seems to me that he is wrong and just not up to date with the knowledge. Trouble is that it seems that very few folks are up to date. I promised him I'd do a bit more research before I implement this plan so I would just like to ask you guys if you can give me more and specific information about combining the two. I am on day three of a six week tapering Vancocin course, and I'd like to get this started, but I have to respect this man's wishes because he does know some, and it's just prudent, but I'd like to get underway. Thanks in advance.

[trob25]

You should take probiotics with your vanco, but as Roy mentioned, Culturelle gets killed by antibiotics so space it far apart as you can.

However, as Roy also mentioned, Florastor is not killed by antibiotics and is actually beneficial in fighting C-Diff as it adheres to the intestines and resists further spores from attaching (or something like that). My GI even recommended I take Florastor for 6 months!

I did not take anything besides acidophilus when I was taking Flagyl, but that was only because I didn't know about probiotics in detail until right after I went off meds.

I do know you need to take a mix of them and a lot (more then the recommended dose, some books suggest 50 billion CFU or more per day). I took Florastor and Culturelle along with acidophilus for two months after my meds ended. I took two Florastor per day, 1 or 2 culturelle depending on how I felt and 1 acidophilus (5 billion CFU). Also, Kefir, a yogurt drink is loaded with up to 10 different types of probiotics, I still drink it today.

My current probiotic mix is danactive for breakfast, one culturelle, one primadophilus reuteri and one glass of Kefir per day. I cut out the Florastor after two and a half months cus it is like $50 per bottle! You have to mix and match them and some of them may actually make you worse as many here have reported. You just have to try, but the types I've mentioned here are some of the best and most popular.