This comment was made recently on an earlier post:
I am so glad I found this blog.
My daughter has had coughing fits for 24 months (she’s 5 1/2 yo).
Inhalers, several doctors, nothing helped. She routinely coughed until vomiting. After one 10 hour coughing fit I reached my limit and scoured the web.
After putting in her whole medical history as search qualifiers I found this [post]. The prior eczema and antibiotics were key indicators.
After 3 days of drinking 1 probiotic shake a day, she showed very marked improvement. After 1 week, no symptoms. This is a girl who’s been unable to run and play for 2 years. Who woke up coughing and gagging most nights.
After 6 weeks of the same regimen, she still shows no symptoms and is running and playing full blast.
The pulmonary specialist discounts the results we’ve seen as a fluke . . . we’ll see. Previously my daughter’s lung capacity was measured at 47% of expected.
“Unable to run and play for 2 years”! I’m impressed. Not only (a) the improvement is huge, but also (b) it resembles verification of a prediction, not just something a theory can explain, (c) it wasn’t obvious to “several doctors” or (d) the rest of the Internet, and (e) after it happened it was dismissed by an expert, even though the evidence for causality is excellent. The verification aspect reminds me of Pale Fire:
If on some nameless island Captain Schmidt
Sees a new animal and captures it,
And if, a little later, Captain Smith
Brings back a skin, that island is no myth.
I introduced my daughterinlaw to kombucha. Both her and my grandaughter have suffered horrible skin rashes all there lives. After drinking a glass per day for a week there was a marked improvement and shortly after that the rashes were completely gone. Many “cures” had been tried previously including subsription medicines with no improvement at all.
I have been stunned at how my sinuses have improved over the last four months after ingesting larger quantities of probiotics. After reading Huffnagle’s book The Probiotics Revolution and your writing on the umami hypothesis (which led to an attempt to make the most umami-infused high-fat burger ever), I’m now eating 1-2 c yogurt day, taking Culturelle Lactobacillus (1/day) and several other bacteria-laden products. While I still have allergies, I have only had stuffed sinuses twice (for one day each time) for the last four months! I had been known at work as the guy who sneezed coming in and had suffered from extreme sinus closure (neti pots didn’t help, decongestant rebound was a problem). I still sneeze from allergies at times but they seem to have gone down as well. Also, 4 caps of flaxseed oil per day–still helping my gums. Fish oil seems to work better for my mood and thought process, though. Am now trying the Shangri-La diet (appetite suppression strategy)….you’re a star, Seth!