# Clarification please!



## dreday (May 4, 2007)

I'm going to my GI doctor tomorrow. I have IBS-D which is a lot of the times caused by stress. But everything gets me sick now, and I just read that gas can actually stress your intestines and give you D. So I wanted to maybe try these probiotics everyone talks about, and I plan to ask my doctor tomorrow. Do doctors give prescriptions for probiotics? Or do you have to order them online or something? And if a probiotic doesn't work for me, will it make me sicker? Sorry, I sound really new to this, but I have no idea how it works really.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

They are dietary supplements so they don't need a prescription.Your doctor may have some recommendations, but often they don't know that much about them since they aren't prescription.Most places that sell supplements have some probiotics. A few brands like DA-IBS and Culturelle are pretty widely available (I can even find them at Walmart and the drugstores here) while others tend to be sold mostly at health food type stores. There are some that are only available online. I think Align is like that, but it does have some clinical evidence that it may be a good one for IBSersTypically they can't make you worse long term. Most contain some sort of cellulose or FOS or other "prebiotic" which tends to feed the probiotics more then the regular bacteria in there, however until the probiotics get established some people find they may increase gas in the short term.I do think some probiotics do better with some people and there isn't a good way to predict who will do best with which one, it's trial and error.K.


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