A good news. Is this real? Anyone with the same experience here?

[Robert]

If you ask your local pharmacy to order the otc VSL3 for you, it will be closer to $50.

[michrichwood]

I’ll try it. Thanks!

[SusanG]

My gastro and I spent this entire past summer trying to get my Humana pharmaceutical insurance to cover VSL3. I have been spending about $200. a month out of pocket for the last four years and really wanted that to stop since now I’m paying tons for my Vancomycin as well. We appealed and appealed and appealed. They refused to see VSL3 as anything but a food supplement. So, I did a lot of research and discovered the original VSL formula is being made by the man who created the formula but left VSL and began this new company and is half the price. It is called Visbiome, extra strength. Same bacteria as VSL3 except made with milk so folks that can’t do dairy need to stay with VSL3. Visbiome is 900 billion bacteria per packet.

[Fabrizio]

Thank you for sharing!

[Bob07]

Dear All,
As I promised to provide you an update of my son’s routine checkup 6 months after my original post here, please see below:
He had MRCP and blood work, his numbers went up as follows:
ALT 229, AST 97, GGT 291, ALP 318
The numbers were lower early November but jumped to the above last week.
His MRCP was stable though, with a slight (2mm) reduction of CBD to 10mm.
He gained 12lb in the last 6 months and his UC was under remission. He is still underweight.
He kept the same healthy diet with variety of probiotics and 2000IU Vitamin D daily.
He did not have any abdominal pain in the last 6 month.
The numbers are obviously worse than what we hoped and expected, the doctor is saying there is a probability of viral infection like flu or something else, he had his flue shot and also the firs dose of Hepatitis B vaccine.
His doctor ordered a repeat blood work next week to see the numbers again. He will advise us what to do afterwards.

Has anyone seen this kind of trend in teenagers? lowering liver numbers significantly for and jumping back up again?

Any comments are really appreciated, we have not lost hope but numbers are nor encouraging.

Wishing everyone all the best.

[yanm]

@Bob07

Hi Leonora,

Thanks for your reply, I am not a medical professional or expert by no means, and I am just educating myself.
I recommend you get hold of Science magazine dated march 9th, 2018. Pages 1097 and page 1156 (for copyright reasons, I cannot share my copy, but the magazine is available either online or at most libraries), here is my understandings form those articles:
1- Vancomycin kills a bacteria called E-Gallinarum in the gut which is suspected that once leaked to blood stream from gut, would causes autoimmune reaction in the liver.
2- It looks like Ampicillin (which is much cheaper than Vanco) has almost the same effect on mice, (talk to your doctor! vanco is bloody expensive!).

My theory which I applied to my son (we could not find any doctor to prescribe vanco) was first stop leaking (preventing the bad bacteria to escape from the gut) and to out number those nasty germs by good germs in order to kick them out of his gut (using high dose probiotics with plant based prebiotics- all organic)… we stopped Sulfasalazine (Non-Steroid Anti Inflammatory drug) since it (like Aspirin) is suspected to make the gut even leakier!

I am afraid of antibiotics since they kill good and essential bacteria as well.

Again, I am not a medical professional and I am not in anyways giving a medical advice here, but I am just sharing my experience, hoping that helps others and helping myself as well with receiving comments and experiences form other people with similar conditions.

Hi Leonora, this is exactly the process i’ve been thinking for my brother! Can you please private message me the probiotic name as well? Thank you!