I have started taking probiotic Acidophilus tablets twice a day now. Each tablet has 500 million "live cells". I don't know exactly what "live cells" means, since all the tablets look just like regular pills (like aspirin) instead of a congealed mass from a petri dish. To be alive, don't they have to be metabolizing something? So what are they metabolizing? Are they multiplying or dying off as they sit in the container? Or maybe they're just dormant until presented with the right environment.
Anyway, I was reading O magazine by Oprah (yes, I was), when someone wrote into the health column with similar symptoms to mine after severely changing diets. My attempts to avoid dairy products helped a little, but didn't have the dramatic effect I was hoping for.
I've had 5 tablets so far, but already I think I can see an improvement. It's hard to say for sure, since I was so emboldened by its apparent success, I introduced all sorts of dairy products my body has not seen for a while. So now I can claim only a tempered success.
But Donna and I have already developed a theory why this might be the answer. Perhaps the systemic antibiotics I took after my India trip last year got rid of the good bacteria along with the bad. If so, this treatment might bring me back to a level of GI health I have not experienced since early 2004. If not, I'll have to give in and go see a specialist.