In today's video, I'm going to talk about how to use probiotics properly for IBS and SIBO so
stay tuned. If you're new here, welcome. My name is Amanda Malachesky. I'm a functional
nutrition health coach and a digestive and allergy detective. For weekly tips on how to best use
diets and supplements for IBS and SIBO, please consider subscribing and be sure to hit the
bell to be notified when I post a new video. As an IBS and SIBO coach, I've helped hundreds
of clients navigate the complex reality of using supplements like probiotics for their IBS and
SIBO. And I also had the opportunity to mentor with Dr. Michael Ruscio, the renowned functional
medicine gut specialist. So in today's video, let's dig into what you need to know to use biotic
supplements for the best results for IBS symptoms like bloating, constipation, and diarrhea.
So the first thing I want to talk about is to acknowledge that there's a lot of conflicting
information out there about probiotics, and it can be confusing for you, the IBS patient,
to navigate and figure out who should I listen to and who should I trust and which position
perspective is right. So something that I hold really near and dear and close to my heart when I
work with clients is the fact that each one of you listening is entirely unique. Your gut's unique,
your life is unique, your body is unique. And the things that you're going to need
to use to best solve your problem are also going to be unique and specialized for you.
So, first and foremost, I believe in applying principles to your situation rather than specific
rote protocols or laundry lists of supplements. So I'm going to share my thoughts on this for you
in this video, but just know that your solution may not fit into a pre-made box or a neat little
recipe. It might be something entirely unique to you. You may need to adapt what you need to do
to fit your unique circumstances. So my hope is that you can come away from this video
with the approach and strategy that you can apply to your situation, to find the solution
that works best for you, with your probiotics. So now let's think about and talk about the
principles that we're working with when we're using probiotics. So the purpose of using
probiotics is, of course, to repopulate your gut with beneficial gut bacteria. And that's because
these beneficial gut bacteria have a really important role to play in your gut health. They
help you reduce inflammation. They help protect you against bad bugs. They can, in some cases,
help crowd out bad bugs. They help with leaky gut and they also help produce certain nutrients.
By way of fermentation, they help digest certain nutrients and create
short chain fatty acids, and other important things that your colon needs for health.
So though there are hundreds or maybe thousands of possible probiotic species that you can use in
supplements, I like to refer to Dr. Ruscio's perspective here, which is that in general,
there are three main categories of probiotics that people normally use. These are, number one,
the lactobacillus and bifidobacteria blends. These are the Saccharomyces boulardii probiotics,
which are a beneficial yeast, and the soil-based probiotics, which are typically bacillus strains,
but also include a few other types of probiotics. So in the research specific species or strains of
these various types of probiotics have been shown in studies to reduce IBS symptoms like bloating,
sometimes constipation, sometimes diarrhea, sometimes antibiotic associated diarrhea. There's
lots of proven and demonstrated and documented benefits. And it can feel like, oh, well,
I have to use the specific things that have been used in those studies. But if you take them in
aggregate, you see these patterns, right? That the lactobacillus and bifidobacteria are helpful in
general for IBS symptom. Or that the Saccharomyces boulardii probiotic, which is the beneficial yeast
are helpful for treating things like H. pylori. There's so much variation between people's
native gut microbiomes and what they need that it's really difficult to predict or say that
you need this very specific strain to make a specific difference with this specific symptom.
So instead the strategy that Dr Ruscio teaches and that I've been teaching as well,
is that we want to choose one high quality probiotic from each of these three main categories
of probiotics. And as best as we can, include them and use them all together. The point again is to
just reintroduce a diversity of probiotics into our guts and let them do their job and
not try to micromanage them too specifically. So now here's where the rubber meets the road.
How do we take this general recommendation and apply it to your unique IBS symptoms or situation?
Well, what we're trying to assess here is whether or not the use of probiotics improves your IBS
symptoms. So I'm curious to hear down in the comments, what are the specific IBS symptoms that
you are hoping to prove by watching this video? So what I want you to do is to approach this as
an experiment you're going to do to just see how your gut and your body responds to the probiotics.
So if you're just starting this experiment for the first time, you'll pick one of the probiotics and
start with that, and then introduce the others in succession. Or if you're already using one of
those three types, you can work in the other two, and then you're going to evaluate what happens.
Now, if you've previously had a bad reaction to probiotics and you know that you react to
a particular type of probiotic, that's fine. But what I want you to do then is to consider
trying the other two types of probiotics and try working those into your routine.
And a little side note here is that if you've previously reacted to probiotics, you want to
try and choose products that don't have any added prebiotics. So these are things like emulin or GOS
or FOS is how they're usually listed on the label of the probiotic. These prebiotics are food for
the probiotics, but they can also feed the bad bacteria in your gut and lead to side effects. So
if you've had a lot of trouble with your probiotics before, this is something to consider.
So in either case, you're going to introduce one new thing at a time, so you're going to only start
one new probiotic at a time, and then you're going to start low and go slow. This is a principle that
I really firmly teach in my programs. We want to start with a low dose and work our way up so
that if we have a negative reaction, we're really clear what exactly caused it and we
know exactly where to go to fix the problem. The general recommendation is one to two capsules,
one to two times a day with the probiotics. So you'll start with one cap once a day,
and slowly work up to the maximum recommended amount. And then when you get to a point where you
feel comfortable with that one, then you'll move on to the next probiotic and repeat the process.
And the idea is to get all three of them together, if you can tolerate them.
If you can't, it's fine. You're just going to get everything that you can tolerate together at the
same time. I did make a video about how to use gut supplements properly. And I will leave a link for
that video here and below this video. So after you finish watching here, you can go check that out.
Now, if you have any negative side effects during any of these introductions, you can reduce the
amount that you're using of that probiotic, or you can just skip it. Not everyone's going to tolerate
all of them and that's fine. The point is just to continue to try and increase the diversity of
the probiotics in your system. So in general, I suggest that you stay with the amount you arrive
at that feels right for you for one to two months. And then at that point, you can look back and
evaluate, well, did this really help me or did it not? And you'll decide what you're going to do
from there. If it feels like it's helping you, you can continue. If you feel like you've plateaued,
you could try backing off to see if you can maintain those results with a lesser amount
of probiotics and save yourself some money. And if you noticed no change whatsoever,
it's probably not worthwhile to continue spending and investing the money on the probiotics.
Now, what about probiotics for SIBO? Well, the main SIBO practitioners like Dr. Allison
Siebecker and Dr. Mark Pimentel do not recommend using probiotics for SIBO while other people
do recommend them. So, who's right? To me, this doesn't really necessarily mean that one is wrong
and the other is right. It merely reflects the complexity of SIBO and treating it and how people
are different and people need different things. As well as the type of patients that people see,
Dr. Siebecker and Dr. Pimentel see some of the most complex SIBO patients who have had
recalcitrant SIBO that just will not go away. Whereas other practitioners may be working with
patients who are a little more responsive to treatment or who haven't been sick quite as long.
Now, the research itself suggests that probiotics actually improve outcomes for SIBO patients. So a
meta-analysis and systematic review of 18 peer reviewed studies showed that people with SIBO
who used probiotics in some cases were able to literally cure their SIBO with probiotics alone.
They also showed that people who used probiotics, who had SIBO had reduced hydrogen concentrations
and also had less abdominal pain. So this study says that probiotics are actually beneficial for
SIBO, but this doesn't necessarily mean probiotics are right for you and your SIBO. Unfortunately,
there's no shortcuts to doing this experimental work of testing and trying the probiotics on
yourself to see how you feel and how you respond. So ultimately, I feel like the strategy
I described earlier in the video applies, even in this case, unless you already have very clear
evidence for yourself personally that probiotics absolutely do not work. Unless you have this,
I think it's worth doing the experimental process of trying probiotics and seeing how it improves or
doesn't improve your symptoms and to go with that. That is the gold standard of care for yourself.
Now, I'm sure some of you are going to want to know which specific probiotic products do I
recommend for my clients. And the answer to this is really that there's many different possible
options, but here are the ones that I recommend. One is the Klaire Labs Metabolic Formula. It's
four strains of lactobacillus and bifidobacteria, and they are low histamine varieties. And that's
why I recommend this specific product. I also use the Pure Encapsulations Saccharomyces boulardii,
and I recommend the megasporebiotic product from Microbiome Labs. I also do recommend Dr. Ruscio's
products, although some of them do have the prebiotics in them, so you have to weigh that.I
will leave a link for my probiotic protocol for my full script dispensary down below this video.
And I will also leave links to Dr. Ruscio's products as well, so you can check those out.
Now, if you're working on rehabbing your gut microbiome and are feeling lost, this is
exactly the kind of thing that I help my clients with inside My Calm Digestion Method Program.
Doors are currently open and inside the program, I help people go from food anxiety and
protocol confusion into a confident plan for calm digestion. So if this sounds like something you
need some help with, I want to encourage you to schedule a free 45 minute discovery call with me
where we'll discuss what's going on with your digestion and how I might be able to help and
determine whether the program is a good fit for you. You can schedule that call by going
to confluencenutrition.com/contact. And I will also leave a link for that below this video.
I really look forward to helping you identify your underlying root causes of your digestive
challenges and helping you find symptom relief. So go ahead and schedule that call,
and I look forward to meeting you. If you liked this video, please remember to click like and
consider subscribing, and also sending it along to somebody who you think could also use it.
And I've also picked a couple of more videos for you here to watch,
so go ahead and check those out. And I will look forward to seeing you next time. Take care.