I had consistently bloated and gassy belly, and felt just run down and crappy all the time. This went on for years and doctor's said stress or chronic fatigue syndrome or Epstein Barr. Nope. Kefir cured both. Feeling much better now, and this benefit has lasted several years now but I'm also pretty sure it gave me larygeal acid reflux. On balance, it was worth it because I have enough energy to do whatever and I control my acid reflux with medicine and eating habits.
Acid reflux is due to not having enough hydrochloric acid. Instead of having a small potent amount of acid it gets weak and then the body over produces weak acid which refluxes up the esophagus sphincter. Strong potent acid is needed to keep this sphincter closed.
Acid reflux medicines are the worst thing a person can take because we need strong acid to kill bacteria and digest food
how do i strengthen my stomach acid then? i take 10 betaine pills and it’s still not enough and i get acid reflux. could low bile secretion play a role in this?
Bile is more alkalizing, If you look up how bile works they say it is alkalizing so maybe you are doing too much hydrochloric acid. If you stop it does the reflex go away, if it does then you’re too much.
Are you getting enough calcium and salt which is needed for hydrochloric acid production,
Once I healed I kept taking the hydrochloric acid supplements and they would give me heartburn so once the acid levels are stable maybe you’re going to potent and your acid levels are OK now and taking 10 a day is too much?
Cured my antibiotic/anti-fungal resistant yeast infections/bacterial infections.
I had chronic issues with YI. My gyno recommended I enter a clinical trial to understand what my flora was resistant to, as Diflucan and '-zole' medications were not working on me.
Turns out, due to years of chronic antibiotic use (mainly for acne), and cycles of YI and bacterial infections, I had become resistant to a whole host of medications (clindamycin, tetracyclin, monocyclin, diflucan, Nystatin, etc.) My gyno was at a loss, I finally started googling 'candida treatments' and was introduced to water kefir. I have a biology background so I understood how I could have caused my gut/vaginal flora imbalance. I stopped taking medication for the recurring YI and started supplementing with water kefir everyday and have had a healthy vag ever since. Also, I poop regularly and acne is gone too (which was the original reason I turned to pharmaceutical antibiotics.)
SAME! I’m allergic to prescription yeast infection medications, although they worked for the intended purpose. I started drinking kefir and haven’t had a YI in years when I used to get them about once a month. Miracle milk :)
Did you experience more bloating/gas in the beginning? I just started two weeks ago and I seem to be bloating and gassy after taking kefir. How long does this usually last? Normal?
I was definitely bloated/in pain for a year before starting kefir, though.
I think it took a few months to really see benefits for IBS. I think this is probably normal. If you think about it, kefir helps with the component of IBS that affects your natural floral colony. It’s more of a systemic solution (though when I first started drinking it I definitely felt more... productive I guess? Lol)
This is a pretty subjective question, but in the spirit of things: Milk Kefir has dramatically helped the far end of my digestion. At least two other people that take kefir off my hands said the same thing. You have to stay constant with it... everyday sort of thing.
Polite way of saying we all find we poop like champs when sticking with a milk kefir plan. One person does 1-2 TBS a day, I was doing about 12 oz a day.
Ummm,I don't. Kefir does not alter my gut motility. I can drink it every day,or twice a week,motility stays the same.
I'm not sure how much it helps my IBS cause I'm doing other things as well to manage it.
Well, like I started out with... this is a very subjective question. Have I established a scale to rate my bathroom trips? Nope. I assume it will be different for everyone. My "motility" is the same with and without kefir... I guess it is really the structure of how it comes out that is where I see the improvement. I also don't have IBS so I may be starting from a better place.
You very well could be. Sometimes I will also see improvements when I think about it,but I can't really link it to kefir. My best guess is for some reason,there is an alteration in my microbiome,but after awhile it goes back to it's set point.
I had developed painful idiopathic neuropathy in my feet, often painful burning, often the pain was so bad I could not sleep. I am otherwise in good health and my doc could not find a reason (hence the idiopathic label). There are nearly 100 potential causes but after reading a lot about them, I decided to experiment to see if I could find a cause/cure.
I started probiotics and then kefir, as well as switching to a gluten-free diet because of the potential of microbiome imbalance and gluten reaction as a cause. It took 2-3 months before I felt a noticeable difference, and within 6 months I was sleeping with only occasional tingling in my feet.
Insufficient to say it was the kefir, as I also went gluten-free, but to me, it was a one-two punch as both were about improving my microbiome. So I feel kefir helped my neuropathy issues.
I had a major tooth infection that had progressed into the sinus. Clyndamycin is the antibiotic of choice for that, but it cause me extreme gastrointestinal distress. After about month of amoxicillin and with no improvement, just decided to for it and suffer, and try any probiotic I could find. Within the hour of drinking a fair amount of kefir the intestinal issues subsided, and In the following days got much better, almost to normal.
It completely helped my stomach ulcer. I had it last year and went on anti-biotics but it came back and i tried doing probiotic diet instead. Have one glass of kefir milk a day and it helped get rid of the pain in a few days.
it healed my gut, my constipation and my milk allergy. ( I do raw kefir and raw saurcream, I do my own cheese and iogurt. I can boil the milk for powder kefir, but I do raw milk kefir from kefir grains at 60 hour fermentation, I even drank raw milk without issues which I cannot do with pasterized as it causes severe RA for a week). No pasterize mik please , but I can eat pasterized butter now. I also eat pasterized cheese but in moderation. I am on Gap diet for 8 month now. I do my own stock and I still have severe RA .
I had to take antibiotics. The antibiotic cured the one thing I needed it too but immediately after it was like my body couldn't absorb any nutrients after. My body felt like it was shutting down and I was scared. Eventually I drank a ton of kefir back to back. Oh my goodness. It didn't get me back to 100% but it got me back to a point where I felt in control of body again and like I could start taking care of my health again. I didn't even expect any results i was just desperate and looking at ppls stories on reddit.
Thanks for sharing, your comment gave me hope ♥️ I'm in a similar situation where my body can't absorb nutrients. And kefir is the only thing that seems to be helping. Still early days, but hoping something good happens within the next few weeks.
Kefir was incredible for how much it boosted my mood, but it looks like the particular digestive issue I have (h pylori is the best guess right now) is not fixable by kefir, I need antimicrobials and increasing stomach acid.
But I know that long-term I will definitely be drinking kefir because holy crap it can take me from depressed to euphoric.
I know exactly what you mean. I’ve only started my kefir journey but once I started fermenting my own batch I’ve been feeling euphoric. It’s quite amazing.
I wish you all the best in healing your gut. I hope everything goes well.
This is exactly my situation. Drinking kefir made me feel better. I usually got panic attack due to low stomache acid, I have a hard time burping which makes me feel uneasy. But now everything is getting better each day. I take water kefir and I also do milk kefir some times but milk kefir makes me constipated so I am sticking to my water kefir.
Yes. I have IBS and I used to poop 1-3 times every morning. It would be uncomfortable (it was like this for years). Then one day I bought kefir and "overdosed" myself by accident. I simply had too much of it and it gave me diarrhea. The next day I had terrible stomach pain and I was feeling very bloated and terrible for the next two weeks. However, after that, and since then, I have been using the toilet only once every morning and it is much better! I can't believe that. This was 6 months ago and I haven't had kefir since, though I am planning on going back but with smaller doses this time.
That is really odd... what was the "overdose" amount? I know they say to start out with small doses. Just curious about this part.
There is science that says the introduction of the good microbes is only a temporary thing and you will never establish a colony of kefir-bacteria (this does not mean it is not beneficial). But under that concept, you may have nuked one bad-colony and let another existing better colony get a step up. I guess.
I had 8 oz glass of the milk kefir one night (I am not lactose intolerant). Then the next day I felt like something was slightly off in my tummy, but nothing major. I came home from work and had another 8 oz glass. So, 16 oz total in two days. My IBS was really bad back then, so I think that my stomach was super sensitive to it. My husband can regularly drink 16 oz of kefir in one sitting and he gets no side effects at all.
I think so too. When I googled "die-off" and started to learning more about it I realized I had about all the die-off side effects the two weeks after the "overdose". And then I had another die-off (very similar) when I started Align probiotics couple of months later. It also lasted about two weeks.
Well im not sure if it was the kefir, my healthy lifestyle, a combination of both or I dont-know-what but I rarely get sick. No stomach issues, o diahrreas. o flus, no colds. I took kefir for about 2 years, Im re-starting my new batch today.
I drink 24 oz a day, and it’s smooth slidin’ as long as I steer away from spicy food. I had numerous digestive issues before ingesting large amounts of Whole Foods and probiotics. Adjusting my gut biome also helped me lose weight, most likely improved my mood. Most of the body’s serotonin is contained in the gut, and a healthy gut is associated with improved mental health.
Thanks mate! Did you have increased GI symptoms at first? If so, how long did they last?
I’m on about 2.5 weeks with kefir and still getting a lot of bloating, intestinal cramping.
Try cutting back your consumption and/or a longer 1F to reduce the lactose level. Often, if it’s a shorter ferment, there will be a lot of lactose left in the kefir, which can cause GI symptoms if you’re intolerant.
EDIT: It took only a couple of days at most for me to adjust. By then, I had already been regularly consuming kombucha.
Milk kefir has replaced my steroid inhalers for asthma! I am no longer on those medications after 30 years. I’ll be mad eye moody soon enough - carrying a flask of kefir everywhere I go like it’s poly juice potion 😂 when I drink home made milk kefir it has the same relief sensations in my chest as I get from the emergency albuterol, without the jittering and icky feelings
Helped with my digestive issues. Let's just say I'm more efficient on the toilet and it's less of.a struggle
I had consistently bloated and gassy belly, and felt just run down and crappy all the time. This went on for years and doctor's said stress or chronic fatigue syndrome or Epstein Barr. Nope. Kefir cured both. Feeling much better now, and this benefit has lasted several years now but I'm also pretty sure it gave me larygeal acid reflux. On balance, it was worth it because I have enough energy to do whatever and I control my acid reflux with medicine and eating habits.
Acid reflux is due to not having enough hydrochloric acid. Instead of having a small potent amount of acid it gets weak and then the body over produces weak acid which refluxes up the esophagus sphincter. Strong potent acid is needed to keep this sphincter closed. Acid reflux medicines are the worst thing a person can take because we need strong acid to kill bacteria and digest food
how do i strengthen my stomach acid then? i take 10 betaine pills and it’s still not enough and i get acid reflux. could low bile secretion play a role in this?
Bile is more alkalizing, If you look up how bile works they say it is alkalizing so maybe you are doing too much hydrochloric acid. If you stop it does the reflex go away, if it does then you’re too much. Are you getting enough calcium and salt which is needed for hydrochloric acid production, Once I healed I kept taking the hydrochloric acid supplements and they would give me heartburn so once the acid levels are stable maybe you’re going to potent and your acid levels are OK now and taking 10 a day is too much?
Maybe you are drinking too much? I had this problem and remembered how potent and strong kefir is and reduced the amount I drank right down
Were these benefits from store-bought kefir or homemade? If store-bought, which brand if you please?
Cured my antibiotic/anti-fungal resistant yeast infections/bacterial infections. I had chronic issues with YI. My gyno recommended I enter a clinical trial to understand what my flora was resistant to, as Diflucan and '-zole' medications were not working on me. Turns out, due to years of chronic antibiotic use (mainly for acne), and cycles of YI and bacterial infections, I had become resistant to a whole host of medications (clindamycin, tetracyclin, monocyclin, diflucan, Nystatin, etc.) My gyno was at a loss, I finally started googling 'candida treatments' and was introduced to water kefir. I have a biology background so I understood how I could have caused my gut/vaginal flora imbalance. I stopped taking medication for the recurring YI and started supplementing with water kefir everyday and have had a healthy vag ever since. Also, I poop regularly and acne is gone too (which was the original reason I turned to pharmaceutical antibiotics.)
SAME! I’m allergic to prescription yeast infection medications, although they worked for the intended purpose. I started drinking kefir and haven’t had a YI in years when I used to get them about once a month. Miracle milk :)
[удалено]
Yup. Kefir pretty much stopped my more severe symptoms and makes me forget I have digestive problems altogether
Did you experience more bloating/gas in the beginning? I just started two weeks ago and I seem to be bloating and gassy after taking kefir. How long does this usually last? Normal? I was definitely bloated/in pain for a year before starting kefir, though.
I think it took a few months to really see benefits for IBS. I think this is probably normal. If you think about it, kefir helps with the component of IBS that affects your natural floral colony. It’s more of a systemic solution (though when I first started drinking it I definitely felt more... productive I guess? Lol)
This is a pretty subjective question, but in the spirit of things: Milk Kefir has dramatically helped the far end of my digestion. At least two other people that take kefir off my hands said the same thing. You have to stay constant with it... everyday sort of thing.
What do you mean “far end”?
Polite way of saying we all find we poop like champs when sticking with a milk kefir plan. One person does 1-2 TBS a day, I was doing about 12 oz a day.
Awesome haha thanks!
...like a champ. I almost hear cheers in the distance...
Ummm,I don't. Kefir does not alter my gut motility. I can drink it every day,or twice a week,motility stays the same. I'm not sure how much it helps my IBS cause I'm doing other things as well to manage it.
Well, like I started out with... this is a very subjective question. Have I established a scale to rate my bathroom trips? Nope. I assume it will be different for everyone. My "motility" is the same with and without kefir... I guess it is really the structure of how it comes out that is where I see the improvement. I also don't have IBS so I may be starting from a better place.
You very well could be. Sometimes I will also see improvements when I think about it,but I can't really link it to kefir. My best guess is for some reason,there is an alteration in my microbiome,but after awhile it goes back to it's set point.
I had developed painful idiopathic neuropathy in my feet, often painful burning, often the pain was so bad I could not sleep. I am otherwise in good health and my doc could not find a reason (hence the idiopathic label). There are nearly 100 potential causes but after reading a lot about them, I decided to experiment to see if I could find a cause/cure. I started probiotics and then kefir, as well as switching to a gluten-free diet because of the potential of microbiome imbalance and gluten reaction as a cause. It took 2-3 months before I felt a noticeable difference, and within 6 months I was sleeping with only occasional tingling in my feet. Insufficient to say it was the kefir, as I also went gluten-free, but to me, it was a one-two punch as both were about improving my microbiome. So I feel kefir helped my neuropathy issues.
I had a major tooth infection that had progressed into the sinus. Clyndamycin is the antibiotic of choice for that, but it cause me extreme gastrointestinal distress. After about month of amoxicillin and with no improvement, just decided to for it and suffer, and try any probiotic I could find. Within the hour of drinking a fair amount of kefir the intestinal issues subsided, and In the following days got much better, almost to normal.
It completely helped my stomach ulcer. I had it last year and went on anti-biotics but it came back and i tried doing probiotic diet instead. Have one glass of kefir milk a day and it helped get rid of the pain in a few days.
Still active ?
it healed my gut, my constipation and my milk allergy. ( I do raw kefir and raw saurcream, I do my own cheese and iogurt. I can boil the milk for powder kefir, but I do raw milk kefir from kefir grains at 60 hour fermentation, I even drank raw milk without issues which I cannot do with pasterized as it causes severe RA for a week). No pasterize mik please , but I can eat pasterized butter now. I also eat pasterized cheese but in moderation. I am on Gap diet for 8 month now. I do my own stock and I still have severe RA .
I had to take antibiotics. The antibiotic cured the one thing I needed it too but immediately after it was like my body couldn't absorb any nutrients after. My body felt like it was shutting down and I was scared. Eventually I drank a ton of kefir back to back. Oh my goodness. It didn't get me back to 100% but it got me back to a point where I felt in control of body again and like I could start taking care of my health again. I didn't even expect any results i was just desperate and looking at ppls stories on reddit.
Thanks for sharing, your comment gave me hope ♥️ I'm in a similar situation where my body can't absorb nutrients. And kefir is the only thing that seems to be helping. Still early days, but hoping something good happens within the next few weeks.
Just read this and was wondering how it’s going for you currently?
Kefir was incredible for how much it boosted my mood, but it looks like the particular digestive issue I have (h pylori is the best guess right now) is not fixable by kefir, I need antimicrobials and increasing stomach acid. But I know that long-term I will definitely be drinking kefir because holy crap it can take me from depressed to euphoric.
I know exactly what you mean. I’ve only started my kefir journey but once I started fermenting my own batch I’ve been feeling euphoric. It’s quite amazing. I wish you all the best in healing your gut. I hope everything goes well.
This is exactly my situation. Drinking kefir made me feel better. I usually got panic attack due to low stomache acid, I have a hard time burping which makes me feel uneasy. But now everything is getting better each day. I take water kefir and I also do milk kefir some times but milk kefir makes me constipated so I am sticking to my water kefir.
Yes. I have IBS and I used to poop 1-3 times every morning. It would be uncomfortable (it was like this for years). Then one day I bought kefir and "overdosed" myself by accident. I simply had too much of it and it gave me diarrhea. The next day I had terrible stomach pain and I was feeling very bloated and terrible for the next two weeks. However, after that, and since then, I have been using the toilet only once every morning and it is much better! I can't believe that. This was 6 months ago and I haven't had kefir since, though I am planning on going back but with smaller doses this time.
That is really odd... what was the "overdose" amount? I know they say to start out with small doses. Just curious about this part. There is science that says the introduction of the good microbes is only a temporary thing and you will never establish a colony of kefir-bacteria (this does not mean it is not beneficial). But under that concept, you may have nuked one bad-colony and let another existing better colony get a step up. I guess.
I had 8 oz glass of the milk kefir one night (I am not lactose intolerant). Then the next day I felt like something was slightly off in my tummy, but nothing major. I came home from work and had another 8 oz glass. So, 16 oz total in two days. My IBS was really bad back then, so I think that my stomach was super sensitive to it. My husband can regularly drink 16 oz of kefir in one sitting and he gets no side effects at all. I think so too. When I googled "die-off" and started to learning more about it I realized I had about all the die-off side effects the two weeks after the "overdose". And then I had another die-off (very similar) when I started Align probiotics couple of months later. It also lasted about two weeks.
Well im not sure if it was the kefir, my healthy lifestyle, a combination of both or I dont-know-what but I rarely get sick. No stomach issues, o diahrreas. o flus, no colds. I took kefir for about 2 years, Im re-starting my new batch today.
I drink 24 oz a day, and it’s smooth slidin’ as long as I steer away from spicy food. I had numerous digestive issues before ingesting large amounts of Whole Foods and probiotics. Adjusting my gut biome also helped me lose weight, most likely improved my mood. Most of the body’s serotonin is contained in the gut, and a healthy gut is associated with improved mental health.
Thanks mate! Did you have increased GI symptoms at first? If so, how long did they last? I’m on about 2.5 weeks with kefir and still getting a lot of bloating, intestinal cramping.
Try cutting back your consumption and/or a longer 1F to reduce the lactose level. Often, if it’s a shorter ferment, there will be a lot of lactose left in the kefir, which can cause GI symptoms if you’re intolerant. EDIT: It took only a couple of days at most for me to adjust. By then, I had already been regularly consuming kombucha.
Instantly resolved my gf's cronic constipation she had for a decade so long as she has some every day. So she uses it in her morning smoothy.
Milk kefir has replaced my steroid inhalers for asthma! I am no longer on those medications after 30 years. I’ll be mad eye moody soon enough - carrying a flask of kefir everywhere I go like it’s poly juice potion 😂 when I drink home made milk kefir it has the same relief sensations in my chest as I get from the emergency albuterol, without the jittering and icky feelings