Hey everyone. I'm wondering if anyone is or has been in a situation similar to mine. If anyone can give me some advice I will be extremely grateful. I've been living without an answer for over a year and a half. I'll keep this as brief as possible.

Background: 31M. Splenectomy in 2011 (trauma), otherwise no GI problems until 2025. In Jan 2025 I did H. pylori quadruple therapy and tolerated it very badly - days after finishing I developed bloody mucous diarrhea, weight loss and felt generally unwell. Fecal calprotectin peaked around 1150. It all started then. It was the first time I had taken such medications in my life and no one - neither my doctor nor the pharmacists - warned me when purchasing such a strong medication that I should also take probiotics.

Extensive workup Feb-Apr 2025: gastroscopy EUS, colonoscopy with biopsies, CT with contrast, abdominal MRI with contrast, many blood/stool tests. This ruled out IBD back then (colon), celiac, microscopic colitis, pancreatic/biliary/liver/kidney/thyroid disease and cancer. Over the following months I recovered most of the weight and calprotectin dropped to ~11–38, where it stayed for about a year. CRP and ESR normal.

Since then: developed methane SIBO/IMO (treated with rifaximin+ neomycin 3 months ago, breath test now negative). May 2026 gastroscopy for new small but frequent epigastric pain - biopsy showed chronic inactive antral gastritis, H. pylori negative, no atrophy, no metaplasia.

Current symptoms that worry me: constant burning/discomfort/weird pain around the navel (feels like small bowel probably), flatulence, occasional nausea, frequent brain fog, fatigue, sometimes night sweats and daytime hot flashes (normal body temp). Sometimes i have cramp in the lower LEFT abdomen (passes in minutes, no diarrhea). Bowel movements mostly 1/2x day, same time, morning fluffy stool . Diarrhea only about once every one week.

Blood/mucus episodes: 3 times over the 1.5 years, small amounts, once attributed to grade I hemorrhoids by a proctologist. Most recent episode ~10 days ago (small blood + mucus, now settled after single episode). I ate mushrooms (can't eat it) and got diarhea and I was holding it in a car for 40 min. Fecal calprotectin taken 24h after that episode came back 92 (lab range: <80 none, 80–160 indeterminate, >160 inflammation).

Deficiencies: B12 trending down (lowest 211), ferritin low (17–31), iron once 6.0. Pancreatic elastase >800 (normal). I take supplements for this and its improving.

Important: my small bowel has never been imaged - no MR/CT enterography, no capsule etc. My colonoscopy and standard abdominal MRI don't cover the mid small bowel. A gastroenterologist has recommended enterography to look for small bowel Crohn's, which I'll do in a month/two back home.

Question - has anyone here experienced a similar situation to mine? I can't find anyone online who has experienced something similar. It's very difficult to live in this state.

So I recently had to take Amoxicillin for a week for a tooth infection while I waited for my appointment to get it extracted. I’ve known about the negatives of antibiotics before hand and because of that I’m always hesitant to take them unless absolutely necessary. I took them in this situation because I’ve read stories of people dying from a tooth infection and while it’s rare it still worried me so I didn’t want to risk it.

To help my gut recover I bought some L.Reuteri capsules and I’m going to try and buy some Kimchi for probiotics. I have a dairy allergy so it’s one of the only options for me.

I read a book called Super Gut from the library, and it was so good I bought it for myself. Over the last 3 years or so, at times, I had 20-25 jars of probiotic ferments in the frig, so have lots of experience and samples. Recently I had exceptional sleep quality, two days in a row, which I never experienced before. Usually if I had one good night seep, 6 hours or so, then the next night it would be way worse than normal.

I was trying 8 different probiotics when the sleep got better, so asked Ai which was helping and the Ai said two were probably doing the work for sleep. I will list the strains, only, as I don't know if I should mention brand names until I establish some credibility . I also then asked Ai which other probiotics would work well to ferment, in half and half, with some inulin about 100F, in a water bath, and it said to add the additional R GG, and most common reuteri also to the other two brands.

One of the newest strain were L plantarum PS128.

The other was L helveticus Rosell-52ND, and B Longum Rosell 175

Anybody can ask Ai which probiotics are best for sleep and then we can compare results to each other in the future.

When I get sleepy am also having exceptional yawns, and my stool has been exceptional where my stool means full clearance of colon, not just partial clearance, and almost few or no toilet paper, but the other 6 probiotics may be the difference on that.

Maybe they are reducing cortisol.
Ai cited which scientific evidence about each 4 different brands and strains, if you ask Ai

One thing I’ve found increasingly interesting in probiotic research is how much biological activity can differ between strains belonging to the same species.
For example, two strains of Lactobacillus may differ substantially in:
bile and acid tolerance
adhesion to intestinal cells
bacteriocin production
carbohydrate metabolism
interaction with other microbes
immune signalling
clinical evidence
So I’ve been working on a book specifically focused on strain-level differences in probiotics, rather than treating “Lactobacillus” or “Bifidobacterium” as if they were single biological entities.
The book is called PROBIOTICS & SPECIFIC STRAINS and examines the evidence surrounding specific strains and their reported properties.
I’m curious what microbiologists and people working with the gut microbiome think:
How important do you consider strain-level identification when evaluating probiotic research?
Book:

https://www.amazon.com/PROBIOTICS-SPECIFIC-STRAINS-S-OZTURK-ebook/dp/B0H6X4L3F3

I have a lower-left impacted wisdom tooth. When I try to smell the saliva that sits around the tooth compared to the saliva on my tongue, they smell different. The saliva around my wisdom tooth smells kind of off, saliva on my tongue smells normal. I also have a bad taste that seems to come from the side where my impacted tooth is.
Has anyone here experienced this before? If so, did getting the wisdom tooth removed get rid of the bad breath and bad taste?

Hello everyone

I'm not seeking medical advice in my post, but rather potential new avenues to explore with my doctors please 🙏

I've been suffering for 4 years. I had a bad food poisoning, which I recovered from with a lot of probiotics but then a constant brain fog developed, and never went away. I was treated for SIBO several months afterwards but this made my brain fog WORSE and my gut issues mostly remained. My worst issues are brain fog that never leaves, bloating, reflux, low energy, tinnitus.

I spent a long time working on my microbiome, but I found probiotics, fibres (even PHGG) would flare my symptoms and sometimes lower my baseline.

Given how quickly I respond to things that flare me (within 45 mins), I figure there must be something wrong in my small intestine. But why would Rifaximin make me so much worse, if that were the case and why did Rifaximin give me DPDR?

I tried an elemental diet, and just a simple carb diet and low FODMAP, and none of these helped my brain symptoms at all.

I've had so many tests, from endoscopy, to brain scan, to vitamin deficiencies. Every single test is normal!

Does anyone have any ideas on what to do next?

I know fiber, fiber, fiber. But if I were to build a daily base of food sources with the right types of fiber, which would be a core group?

One bottle has ten strains, another has three at a higher count, and a third leads on the prebiotic instead. I can’t tell whether more strains means broader coverage or just a better front of pack. What I’d like is a sense of what actually determines whether one is doing anything. What are people here looking at when they choose?

Hi all,

Posting this to see if anyone's run into something similar, since I couldn't find much online specific to probiotics.

I've been on sertraline for a while. Recently I added a Bifidobacterium longum BB536 probiotic supplement alongside it. For the first while there were some genuinely positive effects on my mood. But it progressively got to be too much — I ended up with irritability, insomnia, feeling overheated, anxiety, brain fog, and general overstimulation. It got pretty chaotic and honestly a bit scary.

I stopped taking the probiotic, and the symptoms are already starting to ease off after about 24 hours.

From what I've read, this pattern — a mood lift that tips over into agitation/insomnia/heat/anxiety on top of an SSRI — lines up with excess serotonergic activity, which made me wonder if the strain was nudging serotonin/tryptophan pathways enough to matter combined with the sertraline. I'm planning to bring this up with my doctor too, but wanted to ask here first:

Has anyone else had a reaction like this combining a probiotic (this strain or a different one) with sertraline or another SSRI?

Did it resolve this fast for you once you stopped?

Did your doctor have any insight into it?

On the flip side: has anyone found a specific probiotic strain—particularly for mental clarity or brain fog—that you tolerate well alongside sertraline or other SSRIs without triggering this kind of overstimulation?

Appreciate any input — this doesn't seem to have many documented cases out there, at least not with probiotics specifically.

Calling all experts and techs,

We work with mGAM in hungates to culture gut anaerobes in the lab.

Off late, after media prep, we are running into a constant problem where the hungates have a cloudy white precipitation, or even flaky floaties in autoclaved tubes sitting in the cold room, not more than a week old.

This is very concerning and drastically affects our ODs and we doubt if we can trust the media.

If anyone has any experience on this regard, please do help me out.

Im answering all protocol related questions to see where Im going wrong.

I was just prescribed Senokot for constipation. Constipation made worse by taking PPIs and steroids. It’s supposed to be natural. Does anyone have experience with this? Also I probably have SIBO.

Hi all,Posting this to see if anyone's run into something similar, since I couldn't find much online specific to probiotics.I've been on sertraline for a while. Recently I added a Bifidobacterium longum BB536 probiotic supplement alongside it. For the first while there were some genuinely positive effects on my mood. But it progressively got to be too much — I ended up with irritability, insomnia, feeling overheated, anxiety, brain fog, and general overstimulation. It got pretty chaotic and honestly a bit scary.I stopped taking the probiotic, and the symptoms are already starting to ease off after about 24 hours.From what I've read, this pattern — a mood lift that tips over into agitation/insomnia/heat/anxiety on top of an SSRI — lines up with excess serotonergic activity, which made me wonder if the strain was nudging serotonin/tryptophan pathways enough to matter combined with the sertraline. I'm planning to bring this up with my doctor too, but wanted to ask here first:Has anyone else had a reaction like this combining a probiotic (this strain or a different one) with sertraline or another SSRI?Did it resolve this fast for you once you stopped?Did your doctor have any insight into it?On the flip side: has anyone found a specific probiotic strain—particularly for mental clarity or brain fog—that you tolerate well alongside sertraline or other SSRIs without triggering this kind of overstimulation?Appreciate any input — this doesn't seem to have many documented cases out there, at least not with probiotics specifically.

Anybody advise a good product brand please
Preferably no additives and prebiotics as I have MCAS

I want to slowly add a binder while i’m working on my gut. Is apple pectin a good option?

Any other safe suggestions?

I have been consuming 1 cup of L reuteri yoghurt since 12 days now. The reason i started was my skin issues (Acne, Rosacea, Keratosis Pilaris). Since then I have gotton stomach pain, bloating, gas and sometimes a little headaches always about 6 hours after the yoghurt, which lasted 1-5 hours. My skin also seems worse with more pimples and generally more inflamed. Is this a die off? I normally don't have issues with histamine.

I dont like pickled things and I tried kefir and it tasted awful. Is there any other ways?

Is the Leaky gut the reason why some foods (for example coconut, dairy,gluten) causes anxiety ?