Probiotics?

[Ladybug]

Anyone take probiotics for possible yeast problems? What is the die off period and how bad is it? I gave them to ds and he did not seem to have any problems for the first couple of days, but them bam......another sinus infection (the 6th in 8 months or less) and he is back on antibiotics. The pediatrician thinks it is allergy related but we can't find the allergen! I'm beginning to think it is the antihistamine at this point.

[tic chick]

ladybug,

probiotics are benefical bacteria that live in your stomach and intestinal tract.

they are useful after you have taken antibiotics, because antibiotics kill ALL bacteria, good and bad, in your system.

the idea is to get the good flora back to counteract the bad ones from taking over, and giving you things like yeast infections.

eating yogurt on a daily basis is a good thing. look for a yogurt that has live cultures in it. it will say so right on the package. probiotics should be bought from a health food store with a high turnover rate and they should be in the refrigerated section.

is your son being tested for a high white blood count to prove that he actually has an infection before he gets prescribed antibiotics? sometimes antibiotics keep giving you rebound infections, because the bad bacteria grow back faster than the good.

there is a kind of nose cleaner, that you run water through your nostrils in one side and out the other. it has helped many people reduce their allergy problems and it is natural. maybe your son is old enough to want to try that. it is called a "neti-pot". you can google that to read about it and i remember seeing some at drugstore.com a while back. this a daily nose cleaner.

hope this has been helpful,
jeannie

[Naominjw]

Probiotics is what the pediatrician used to put my daughter on to replenish gut flora that are killed of by antibiotics. But they don't kill off yeast overgrowth/systemic yeast and there is no die off period associated with it.

She used to get sinus and ear infections frequently... and other respiratory infections. She got allergy tested and it was all dust, mold and lots of outdoor seasonal pollens. She ended up on allergy meds which beat chronic antibiotics....and we made her room as hypoallergenic as we could.

There now are nutritional regimens to help lower allergies.

[Ladybug]

Thank you Jeannie and Naominjw.

No, the pediatrician never tests anything. He has not run one single basic blood test to help diagnose ds mystery illness and he is still impaired 3 years later. He does not even try to identify the organism after his 6th supposed sinus infection in 7 months. I ask him to run tests and he refuses.

Naominjw: What allergy testing did you have done that showed the allergens? We had the RAST test and everything was negative although all the specialists can easily observe that he is strongly reacting to some allergen. The specialists can't understand why nothing is showing up on the limited allergens tested, but the reactions are obvious. Another allergist is going to do some of the skin prick tests in a couple of weeks, but I'm getting hopeless that they will ever find anything on their tests and the medical doctors won't treat him unless it shows up on their own test, no matter how severe the symptoms are.

[Naominjw]

She had the skin tests but they only showed up some minor food reactions, and some severe inhaled reactions. That was done by an allergist.

The best thing we did was get food sensitivities testing done checking alternative methods (check out http://www.enterolab.com and http://www.greatplainslaboratory.com/ )
Great plains can also check for yeast overgrowth but any child on multiple bouts of antibiotic may benefit from using both probiotics and a bout of something like Candex, Candistroy, etc.

My daughter felt sooooo much better after going on a gluten-free, casein-free, egg-free, soy-free diet... the things she showed food sensitivity to. The only one of those that showed up on the skin test was the egg, and that reactian was mild.

She did have intestinal malabsorption (she wasn't absorbing calcium which caused osteoporosis) that we knew of before we pursued the further testing to find out why. I just so badly wish we had done all this testing YEARS earlier.

No, the pediatrician never tests anything.

That's what a lot of us encounter... even at the specialist's office. My vet runs more tests on my dog than the doctors ran on my child. In my daughter's case, they just labeled things with "mental illness" and didn't check her gut, her hormones, etc. And it isn't just with children. A friend's aunt was "diagnosed" with anxiety and was sent to therapy. She didn't get better. Duh. It turned out to be an adrenal tumor. As long as the doctors don't know the cause of the symptoms they are "mental" or "idiopathic".

-"Naomi"

[Razzle0]

If the probiotic is grown in dairy, and your son has a delayed sensitivity to dairy (won't show up in a RAST test), then that may be the reason for the "sinus infection" symptoms appearing 2 days after starting the probiotic. So you might want to find a dairy-free probiotic and keep a detailed food diary for your son to see if there are any patterns of symptoms/foods. Also, limiting dairy intake while dealing with upper respiratory infections in general is a good idea because milk proteins promote mucus formation in the respiratory tract and therefore can make getting rid of a stubborn infection more difficult.

Also, you may want to find another physician if you are not happy with your current pediatrician. I am amazed at the lack of testing, even a simple CBC, first before giving antibiotics.

And also be aware that the RAST test is less able to pick up some allergies because it isn't able to detect all the recepters on the allergen. Skin prick tests are able to detect all the recepters on the allergen. Antihistamines interfere with skin prick test results, so he should be off all anti-allergy medications for about 2 weeks prior to the skin tests (Allergists claim only 3-5 days off the meds is enough, but I've heard of some more well-informed Allergists recommending 2 weeks).

Also, the infection may be fungal - Mayo Clinic has done research showing that more than 90% of long-term sinusitis is caused by fungal infection in the sinuses. An anti-fungal nasal wash may be needed to treat this, in addition to or instead of systemic antifungal medication.

Good luck,

-Razzle
Chronic Lyme, Allergies, Gluten Sensitivity (genetic), Sulfite Sensitivity, etc.