Probiotics And Problems That Can Come With Them

If you’ve read my other blog posts, I’ve mentioned a bad reaction to probiotics. I was hoping it was the strands that I was taking because the reaction has happened a number of times.

This is what happens

1. I start a high dose of probiotics (generally acidophilus is the main strain) – don’t do this if you’re sensitive
2. 2-3 days later I’m an emotional disaster, my skin starts breaking out, my digestion gets destroyed (diarrhea).
3. I take a break for 2-3 weeks which is how long it takes to recover
4. I start a low dose probiotic (literally one for babies)
5. 4 days later I’m an emotional disaster, my skin starts breaking out, and my digestion gets messed up again

So I made sauerkraut in the hopes that it was certain strains that were bothering me and not all probiotics. I’ve been eating a tablespoon of sauerkraut at night for 4 days and I can feel it hit my mood.  I’m tolerating it much better than the pill form of probiotics, but I’m going to have to limit it to a tablespoon once a week and see if that’s okay. So that’s a bit of a downer, apparently, I have a lot more healing to do before I can introduce probiotics in!

Don’t incorporate sauerkraut or probiotics in until you’ve done the elimination diet for a good month and you can monitor your symptoms. I’m hoping most of the people who read this blog aren’t as sick as I was and will be able to tolerate far more foods than me. If you can tolerate it, eat it! It’s good for you and good at rebuilding your microbiome in the right direction (not bacteria or candida that survive off of sugar). If you can’t tolerate it, don’t give up, maybe you just need some more time to heal (that’s what I’m hoping for me). It’s possible (I suppose) that my gut damage is great enough that my body is reacting to the introduction of bacteria. I’ll give it some time again but sauerkraut has gone much better than the pill versions of probiotics.

The other thing I might do, just because my diet is so limited, is cook the sauerkraut. Now apparently this destroys all the lovely probiotics that have been growing in there, but maybe that’ll at least mean I can tolerate it better. So I’ll go to a tablespoon once a week, and perhaps cooking it. I’ll update you guys to let you know if that’s more easily tolerated.

If you’re super sensitive like me, eating fermented vegetables doesn’t mean you’ll be able to eat the same vegetables unfermented. Fermenting gets rid of a lot of the sugars present in them (the bacteria eat it).  I’ll update in a couple of weeks on my reaction to cooked sauerkraut.

Here’s the sauerkraut recipe. It’s delicious if you can tolerate it.