Hello.
Full disclosure, I am experiencing gut-related issues, and my GI is largely unfamiliar with this topic, and says he has not seen this before. So I am not seeking advice, but rather to acquire the knowledge needed to better converse with him about my options and situation and then get the actual advice from him.
Basically I experienced minor gut issues, and after a clean endoscopy, colonoscopy, and ultrasound, he recommended I take probiotics, specifically Digestive Advantage (a Bacillus Coagulans strain). So I took them. They made me feel exhausted/gave me muscle fatigue, with no other symptoms. I thought it could be die-off, but after two weeks, felt that it probably was a bad reaction and stopped. Now, two and a half weeks later, I'm still very tired and my muscles get sore easily. My GI says he's never seen probiotics give someone a reaction like this before.
As such, I want to confirm some things before my follow up. But trying to do my own research has offered differing answers to basically all of the following questions, and turning to a more research-oriented place seems my best option.
Full disclosure, I am experiencing gut-related issues, and my GI is largely unfamiliar with this topic, and says he has not seen this before. So I am not seeking advice, but rather to acquire the knowledge needed to better converse with him about my options and situation and then get the actual advice from him.
Basically I experienced minor gut issues, and after a clean endoscopy, colonoscopy, and ultrasound, he recommended I take probiotics, specifically Digestive Advantage (a Bacillus Coagulans strain). So I took them. They made me feel exhausted/gave me muscle fatigue, with no other symptoms. I thought it could be die-off, but after two weeks, felt that it probably was a bad reaction and stopped. Now, two and a half weeks later, I'm still very tired and my muscles get sore easily. My GI says he's never seen probiotics give someone a reaction like this before.
As such, I want to confirm some things before my follow up. But trying to do my own research has offered differing answers to basically all of the following questions, and turning to a more research-oriented place seems my best option.
- Are there any statistics on how often probiotics actually cause adverse symptoms, and what the breakdown of root causes are? (ie dysbiosis vs allergic reaction vs something else entirely)
- Bacillus Coagulans are spore-forming. Some places online say that spore-forming probiotics are transient, some say they are not, some say they aren't supposed to be but have a higher chance of populating your gut. What does the research indicate?
- I see all sorts of figures online about some probiotics lasting for 1-2 weeks, some saying they last 3-4, some saying that whether they're spore-based matters, etc. Is there a consensus on this?
- There seems to be a lot of fearmongering about Bacillus Coagulans, but is any of that based on actual research, or just anecdote?
