Digestive Advantage - IBS Suggestion
Published by tummyblogger September 1st, 2007 in Probiotics, IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, IBS-C, IBS-D, Align, Digestive Advantage - IBS, Digestive Advantage - Constipation, IBS SymptomsThis recent post about IBS probiotic Align has a comment from David at Ganeden Biotech, makers of Digestive Advantage ™IBS. They would like me to repeat the review process that I did with Align, using their product for IBS. Their product is widely available in stores, and has one good clinical test of its efficacy.
I am going to respond and thank them. I will have to suggest that I do the review month with their product for Constipation, rather than the one labeled IBS. DA-IBS contains sucralose (Splenda), one of the IBS triggers — at least one of my triggers. Their http://www.ganedenbiotech.com/prod_constipation.html is labeled as using sugar, rather than sucralose.
So, we’ll see. Again, the only compensation is two months of free product. I will also ask for a discount specifically for readers of this blog. They already offer free samples on their web site, although I don’t know how many that would be sent to each customer.
There are some interesting and good reviews of Digestive Advantage ™- IBS on ePinions, which will server for starters.
5 Responses to “Digestive Advantage - IBS Suggestion”
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align has helped to keep the infection miminal as I have an impressively spastic colon and do not get enough by at anytime.
Hi, Donna
Thank you for your comment. I’m glad that Align is working for you. You call IBS an “infection.” Infection works as a term to take away the idea of “it’s all in your head;” I don’t think IBS is caused by an infection, though.
I’ll be posting more on this, so stay tuned.
Best,
Tummyblogger
I was looking on line at how to order Align and found this webpage. I am a recent user of Align….Long story short I was diagnosed with Antibiotic caused Clostridium Difficile and my GI system has never been the same since. My GI Dr. put me on Align after the C. Diff was gone, but I am very much in tune now with my GI issues. I thought things were going well so when my free packages of Align were finished I didn’t think anything of it to try to get more. Then the symptoms of GI troubles came back within a week of stopping the Align. I went to the Dr.’s and they immediately said I should get back on the Align, but whoa $30.00 a month is alot of money over time. (she said I may be a lifelong taker of Align) I’m kind of in a quandary, but the symptoms are way worse than the cost of taking the pill? Maybe…any thoughts on this?
Dear Meagan,
Thanks for your comment. I agree with your GI Doctor, that you will need to take a pill form of probiotic for the rest of your life. Possible solutions:
* You can use our Align code, to order Align at $25 /month, instead of $30 per month (the code is AlignWOM - as far as I know, it still works, and will work repeatedly.
* You can use Digestive Advantage - IBS, which was on the market earlier, and not promoted to Doctors in the same way. If you take the capsule or caplet form (not the chewables) it works, in my experience, as well as Align. For $17 or $18 you can get 96 capsules — a three month supply. A LOT cheaper than Align.
For my money, Digestive Advantage - IBS works as well or better than Align, although you may be more comfortable taking one in the morning and one at night, to build up the good bacteria. When I had to take a megadose antibiotic recently, I doubled DA-IBS to two in the morning, two at night, for a while. Then slowly went back down to 1 at night, two in the morning. Then back to one in the morning, one at night.
Basically, my reason for taking two per day is that
* It’s fairly cheap
* I’m covered if I forget one dose
Two per day costs $36 for three months, or $13 per month, less than half what Align costs. Align is a really good product — and I’ve taken some bad ones — but so is Digestive Advantage - IBS. Part of Align’s cost comes from marketing Align to doctors, sending out specialists in medical marketing to visit doctors,. writing and distributing literature to doctors, and giving them free samples.
I think it would have been nice if they had also put it on the pharmacy shelf next to Digestive Advantage - IBS. Now Align has the aura of a “medicine” for IBS, which it is not. There are probably other probiotics that will be fairly specifically engineered for IBS in the pipeline. How they will be marketed is the question.
I agree with you. The symptoms are way worse than taking the pill. Taking a daily probiotic is just part of the whole story for managing IBS. There are three parts to getting it all under control.
1. Diet
2. Probiotic (Align ™ or Digestive Advantage - IBS ™ are my current recommendations)
3. Soluble fiber supplement - Heather’s Acacia Tummy Fiber ™, FiberSure ™, or a guar gum supplement (cheaper, less appealing to use).
DISCLOSURE: I did receive two months of Align, before its widespread release, on the condition that I would take it every day, and blog about the experience - which I did. I rescued a comment from a manager at Digestive Advantage from my comment-spam file; in it he offered me the same deal — free product for two months, in exchange for blogging about the product on For My Tummy.
Well, you did leave me the opening in asking “Any thoughts?”
Thanks for writing in,
All the best,
Tummyblogger
Dear Meagan,
Thanks for your comment. I agree with your GI Doctor, that you will need to take a pill form of probiotic for the rest of your life. Possible solutions:
* You can use our Align code, to order Align at $25 /month, instead of $30 per month (the code is AlignWOM - as far as I know, it still works, and will work repeatedly.
* You can use Digestive Advantage - IBS, which was on the market earlier, and not promoted to Doctors in the same way. If you take the capsule or caplet form (not the chewables) it works, in my experience, as well as Align. For $17 or $18 you can get 96 capsules — a three month supply. A LOT cheaper than Align.
For my money, Digestive Advantage - IBS works as well or better than Align, although you may be more comfortable taking one in the morning and one at night, to build up the good bacteria. When I had to take a megadose antibiotic recently, I doubled DA-IBS to two in the morning, two at night, for a while. Then slowly went back down to 1 at night, two in the morning. Then back to one in the morning, one at night.
Basically, my reason for taking two per day is that
* It’s fairly cheap
* I’m covered if I forget one dose
Two per day costs $36 for three months, or $13 per month, less than half what Align costs. Align is a really good product — and I’ve taken some bad ones — but so is Digestive Advantage - IBS. Part of Align’s cost comes from marketing Align to doctors, sending out specialists in medical marketing to visit doctors,. writing and distributing literature to doctors, and giving them free samples.
I think it would have been nice if they had also put it on the pharmacy shelf next to Digestive Advantage - IBS. Now Align has the aura of a “medicine” for IBS, which it is not. There are probably other probiotics that will be fairly specifically engineered for IBS in the pipeline. How they will be marketed is the question.
I agree with you. The symptoms are way worse than taking the pill. Taking a daily probiotic is just part of the whole story for managing IBS. There are three parts to getting it all under control.
1. Diet
2. Probiotic (Align ™ or Digestive Advantage - IBS ™ are my current recommendations)
3. Soluble fiber supplement - Heather’s Acacia Tummy Fiber ™, FiberSure ™, or a guar gum supplement (cheaper, less appealing to use).
DISCLOSURE: I did receive two months of Align, before its widespread release, on the condition that I would take it every day, and blog about the experience - which I did. I rescued a comment from a manager at Digestive Advantage from my comment-spam file; in it he offered me the same deal — free product for two months, in exchange for blogging about the product on For My Tummy.
Well, you did leave me the opening in asking “Any thoughts?”
Thanks for writing in,
All the best,
Tummyblogger
PS - See the recent post about Digestive Advantage - IBS, about their web-site offers of an eight-day free sample, and a $1.50 discount coupon for a one-month supply.