# Probiotics



## Outlook (Sep 11, 2015)

I first went to see a social worker when I was 15. Since then, I have had a boat load of medication and many years of psychotherapy. It is remarkable to me that almost nothing worked, including Nardil which was too stimulating to be helpful. (I really felt drugged, and my students teased me for being on drugs while I was taking it. I never told them anything, but they could tell I was on a drug.) Now I am 50, and I can give a disturbingly short list of what actually helped me.

1. The book Stop Obsessing by Edna Foa. This actually helped my OCD. (Psychotherapy sure didn't.)

2. Probiotics, specifically the following: 

Lactobacillus acidophilus
Lactobacillus casei
Lactococcus lactis
Bifidobacterium lactis 
Bifidobacterium bifidum

That is all. Not only were therapy and meds not helpful, I have real horror stories about them both. I feel injured by therapy -- and I had roughly 14 years of it. I don't care for most forms of CBT therapy either, although Edna Foa's approach is clearly a kind of CBT. I don't like the kind of CBT which requires monitoring one's own thoughts. That seems very unnatural to me. Let my thoughts be what they are!


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## Noca (Jun 24, 2005)

Have you ever tried ACT? It is another cognitive therapy but its different than CBT.

You haven't really mentioned what all you suffer from besides OCD.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Outlook (Sep 11, 2015)

Noca said:


> Have you ever tried ACT? It is another cognitive therapy but its different than CBT.
> 
> You haven't really mentioned what all you suffer from besides OCD.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


I find it interesting that you refer to my conditions in the present tense, as though I still have everything. The OCD pretty much completely ended when I read Foa 20 years ago. The SA has ended recently, since I only recently started using probiotics.

I have tried ACT and do not like it. I don't like things which involve self-monitoring. I find that obnoxious.

As for what I currently suffer from, I suppose there is a residual personality disorder from all the decades of SA. Possibly some degree of schizoid personality.


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## Robot the Human (Aug 20, 2010)

Thanks for the list of probiotics. I've just recently been taking these over the past few months, yet I've been too lazy to fully research in detail for myself what kinds that I need. This is a great reminder to look more into what I need exactly, as opposed to just buying what looks good. I at least go for the type that suggests you keep them refrigerated, however I've noticed that the stores do not chill them. It's hard to say exactly when they were produced or how long they sit on the shelves, but again this is something I should be looking into so that I'm not just taking shots in the dark.

I'm also curious what specific brand you are taking. I originally took these for digestive reasons exclusively, but later found out how the mind and digestion is more closely linked than you'd imagine. Since coming away from this nasty nostalgic depression, I'm able to go places and do things again even more so than those past windows that had opened up for me and without knowledge of the probiotics. The probiotics may have been working against my anxiety without me even realizing it at first.


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## Blue Dino (Aug 17, 2013)

Lactobacillus Plantarum is another common essential one too, if you're gonna do a probiotics regiment.


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## Outlook (Sep 11, 2015)

I live in Brazil, even though I am not Brazilian. So I take what I can find here. I take the two brands which contain the broadest range of bacteria, given what I have found here. Those two brands are:

Flora 5

20 Bi

Apparently, they contain the same strains. I take one in the morning and one in the evening. You may wonder what the difference between the brands is. One seems to contain a higher quantity of bacterial particles than the other. And one has funny little serial numbers after the names of the bacteria while the other does not. I do not know what, if any, difference that makes.

If the probiotics are freeze dried, I don't think they need to be refrigerated.


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## Outlook (Sep 11, 2015)

Blue Dino said:


> Lactobacillus Plantarum is another common essential one too, if you're gonna do a probiotics regiment.


I don't know if there is a brand available here which includes that one or not.


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## Noca (Jun 24, 2005)

Outlook said:


> I find it interesting that you refer to my conditions in the present tense, as though I still have everything. The OCD pretty much completely ended when I read Foa 20 years ago. The SA has ended recently, since I only recently started using probiotics.
> 
> I have tried ACT and do not like it. I don't like things which involve self-monitoring. I find that obnoxious.
> 
> As for what I currently suffer from, I suppose there is a residual personality disorder from all the decades of SA. Possibly some degree of schizoid personality.


Actually the way I used the word "suffer" was meant to include past and present, as opposed to "suffering" which would only be speaking about the present, at least according to my understanding of the English language that I have used all my life.

I have never heard a horror story about any cognitive therapy short of the therapist sexually assaulting their patients, I am I am sorry that none have worked for you. Doesn't seem like it matters anyway if you have successfully rehabilitated from all of your conditions except for schizoid, which is all great. I am left wondering why exactly did you make this thread?

If you want probiotics, fermented food contains 100's of billions of bacteria compared to the measly 5-30 billion found in most probiotic capsules, and they are probably a lot cheaper too.


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## Blue Dino (Aug 17, 2013)

Outlook said:


> I don't know if there is a brand available here which includes that one or not.


These are the two brands I've tried.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0V8JVM62S8F289FS9CCN

http://www.amazon.com/NOW-Foods-Pro...qid=1443502086&sr=1-1&keywords=now+probiotics

Though now, I usually just eat a tablespoon of raw fermented unpasturized sauerkraut daily, which some believe are much more effective form of probiotics. But I dunno.


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## Outlook (Sep 11, 2015)

Noca said:


> I have never heard a horror story about any cognitive therapy short of the therapist sexually assaulting their patients, I am I am sorry that none have worked for you. Doesn't seem like it matters anyway if you have successfully rehabilitated from all of your conditions except for schizoid, which is all great. I am left wondering why exactly did you make this thread?
> .


I find the effect of probiotics so remarkable, I believe that people should hear about them. Let me rephrase that: I am someone for whom almost nothing ever worked, even after well over a decade of therapy. And probiotics have had a very noticeable effect, even for me. All the talk I heard of people "going into therapy" makes me nervous, because I can just imagine people being frustrated even after years of therapy thinking that they got nothing out of it. Medications are very scary, since the "side effects" are often just other forms of mental illness. I have a friend -- in the "real world", not online -- who has responded positively to probiotics, but wants to go into therapy and take psych meds anyway. (His pro-bio dose is low, as I keep reminding him. He could just increase it.) He is young and doesn't really know what he is getting into. I keep warning him that therapy and meds are dangerous, but I can't control him. I don't know what's going to happen.


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## Outlook (Sep 11, 2015)

Blue Dino said:


> These are the two brands I've tried.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0V8JVM62S8F289FS9CCN
> 
> ...


Thank you for the links. I may try one of these brands when I am next in the United States.


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