Probiotic - not sure which one to pick!

Hey folks,

I've had Ares on the fortiflora for a little while now, and I've just come to find that it's not so good for him. I'd like to get him on a better one, and I heard that human probiotics can be used for cats as well, though I'm not sure which ones.

I was at walmart today and picked up Spring Valley Multi-Enzyme probiotic (1 billion active). Link here -> http://www.walmart.com/ip/Spring-Valley-Multi-Enzyme-Probiotic-200-Tablets/11997236

Is this safe for my kitten? He'll be 6 months old tomorrow, on the 17th, and If it is safe for him how much should he be getting? The dosage for people is 3 tablets a day.

If anyone can suggest another probiotic (if this one isn't ok) that would be great! One that I can pick up at a market or a local GNC.

did you ask your vet about probiotics?

and i have no idea since i have never gave it to my cats i was going to but chewy didnt ship my stuff it declined my card :/ i was going to try this http://www.chewy.com/dog/vetri-science-vetri-mega-probiotic/dp/48745   i would suggest to ask your vet

Mewlittle said:

did you ask your vet about probiotics?

and i have no idea since i have never gave it to my cats i was going to but chewy didnt ship my stuff it declined my card :/ i was going to try this http://www.chewy.com/dog/vetri-science-vetri-mega-probiotic/dp/48745   i would suggest to ask your vet

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I spoke to her last week - and she just told me If I decided to put him on one, that would be fine, but she didn't feel like it was overly necessary. After doing my own looking around and I've decided I am going to put him on one, I'm just not sure which kind (as the vet didn't really have any advice on what kind)

I would rather not get them online, but from a store I can drive too - I don't want to take the chance of him not liking it and not being able to return it

I completly understand hope you find something for him

edit i just looked at the one you want to try ingredients here it is >Other Ingredients: Dicalcium Phosphate, Vegetable Cellulose, Maltodextrin, Vegetable Stearic Acid, Silica, Croscarmellose, Vegetable Magnesium Stearate. Contains Milk and Wheat Ingredients.

i dont know what half the ingredients are and silica? isn't that in cat litter and it also has milk and wheat

Carolina found a great one, IMO. It's Nexabiotic 20-strain. A lot of us use human probiotics for our cats on an ongoing basis. :nod:

Basically, any acidophilus supplement is fine - but the less "other" ingredients the better. My holistic vet suggests 10 billion CFU of live cultures for adult cats (so 5 billion CFU for kittens). Basically, the acidic environment of the stomach means that most of the probiotic won't reach the intestines alive - which is why we shoot for larger quantity than is in most pet food probiotics.

If you want to read more, it's discussed in this thread: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/262587/probiotics-search-human-grade-and-cfus

Which probiotic did your vet prescribe?

At the time (it was for Chumley, who had chronic diarrhea) it was part of a whole program for him. She just said "go to your health food store and ask for their best acidophilus probiotic supplement. You want at least 10 billion CFU of live cultures."

And that's what I did, and the owner (who is very knowledgeable on everything she carries) recommended Natural Factors double-strength acidphilus+bifidus, which is why I used that one until Carolina found the Nexabiotic 20-strain probiotic with the S. Boulardii in it. I like that it has a number of aciophilus and bifidus strains in it as well.

what about this one? my mom bought it for us humans lol but im not sure if it is safe for animals or not

Ares said:

Hey folks,

I've had Ares on the fortiflora for a little while now, and I've just come to find that it's not so good for him. I'd like to get him on a better one, and I heard that human probiotics can be used for cats as well, though I'm not sure which ones.

I was at walmart today and picked up Spring Valley Multi-Enzyme probiotic (1 billion active). Link here -> http://www.walmart.com/ip/Spring-Valley-Multi-Enzyme-Probiotic-200-Tablets/11997236
Is this safe for my kitten? He'll be 6 months old tomorrow, on the 17th, and If it is safe for him how much should he be getting? The dosage for people is 3 tablets a day.

If anyone can suggest another probiotic (if this one isn't ok) that would be great! One that I can pick up at a market or a local GNC.

Click to expand...

What is wrong with Fortiflora.

Nothing is wrong with it per se. It's active ingredient is Enterococcus Faecium SF68. I provided a link to the Purina piece on its benefits in another thread, link in my first post in this thread. It can be helpful for cats with diarrhea as a result of antibiotic use.

But for some cats, it's entirely the wrong strain. It also is just one strain, with a lot of other ingredients. The main ingredient is animal digest. This is what makes it so tastey to most cats, as that is the stuff sprayed on kibble to make it taste good to cats. (Which is why it can work so well to get cats eating, and is a great transition "topper" for people transitiong cats from dry to wet, or canned to homemade).

But some people want to avoid rendered products, which is what animal digest is.

Fortiflora has its place. :nod:

But for cats with sensitive GI systems, sensitivity to fats, or when a probiotic is being used to restore GI health and support immune system function (the GI system accounts for about 70% of the immune system), it's not an appropriate probiotic.

A better choice is a multistrain probiotic with at least acidophilus and bifidobacterim strains. And if the possibilty exists that kitty has been exposed to coccidia or clostridium (e.g. rescue kitties, outdoor kitties, and/or raw fed kitties), a probiotic that also includes s. boulardii is a better choice.

I had thought about using Fortiflora to get my kibble addicts to eat more wet, but I seen that it's primary use is to treat diarrhea.  That doesn't sound like something Patches should have because he is prone to constipation.

Mewlittle said:

I completly understand hope you find something for him

edit i just looked at the one you want to try ingredients here it is >Other Ingredients: Dicalcium Phosphate, Vegetable Cellulose, Maltodextrin, Vegetable Stearic Acid, Silica, Croscarmellose, Vegetable Magnesium Stearate. Contains Milk and Wheat Ingredients.

i dont know what half the ingredients are and silica? isn't that in cat litter and it also has milk and wheat

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Some of these ingredients (like the milk and wheat) are used as a base so that the probiotic can grow and colonize. Others I recognize as part of the gelcap. Magensium stearate is commonly used to give weight to certain supplements so that it doesn't fly into the air and can be handled and put into a gelcap or capsule form.

Ares said:

I spoke to her last week - and she just told me If I decided to put him on one, that would be fine, but she didn't feel like it was overly necessary. After doing my own looking around and I've decided I am going to put him on one, I'm just not sure which kind (as the vet didn't really have any advice on what kind)

I would rather not get them online, but from a store I can drive too - I don't want to take the chance of him not liking it and not being able to return it

Click to expand...

Check beforehand if you want the possibility of returning an open product. Even my regular, brick-and-mortar health food store wouldn't take back opened product.

I went with Total Biotics before the Nexabiotic was brought up. For now the Total Biotics is fine, will look into the subject again as I run out.

http://total-zymes.com/total-biotics.html

They are not widely carried, but I did find one at a holistic pet store near where I live.

I am kinda curious about the negative reviews I saw on Nexabiotic on Amazon. Can anyone comment?

Raintyger said:

I am kinda curious about the negative reviews I saw on Nexabiotic on Amazon. Can anyone comment?

http://www.amazon.com/Multi-probiotic-Lactobacillus-Bifidobacterium-Saccharomyces-Benebiotics/dp/B0050FKPU0/ref=sr_1_1?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1376756906&sr=1-1&keywords=nexabiotic

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Did you click on the 1 star to read the bad reviews? (16 out of 114; the 5 stars are 66 out of 114).

There was one complaint of the probiotic causing a rash; the rest were mostly people for whom it didn't work, didn't work better than what they were using, or caused gas & bloating. But for the most part, these are people (according to info in the reviews) that have IBD/IBS and clearly some for whom this may not be a good probiotic.

Part of the problem, however, is that the probiotic changed its formulation and its name - and I don't know when that happened. So how many of the reviews were written prior to the new formulation? :dk: I'm not providing the probiotic to help manage IBD or IBS (though it has been shown to alleviate inflammation-related diarrhea: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3296087/ ).

I suggest that if anyone's interested in a (human grade) probiotic for their pet, take it yourself before giving it to your pet. :dk: Gary and I take them (he has IBD), and it hasn't caused any problems for either of us. The cats - I see no difference in them or their stool between this probiotic and the one we were using, Natural Factors double-strength Acidophilus+Bifidus with goat milk. But they have only been on it a few weeks.

If the cats liked s. boulardii, and I could have just added it to the probiotic I was using, I would have gone that route. But they hate it, and I see why. S. boulardii is very bitter, so nearly impossible to hide in food. Yet I want them to have s. boulardii, because of the protection it provides for specific problems we may encounter because I feed raw meat. As you can see in the "good" reviews, it does help those with C. diff. It resolved C. perf in a TCS' member's cats without the use of antibiotics; it resolved coccidia in kittens we rescued without antibiotics. And in the NIH paper to which I provided a link above, when used with metronadizole (flagyl), it resolved giardia 100% in two week, where without it, 17% of those treated still had giardia cysts.

Ultimately, it depends upon your goal in the use of probiotics. For resolving symptoms of IBD, there is conflicting evidence of S. boulardii (alone) helping. For resolving and providing protection against parasitic and certain bacterial infections, there is compelling evidence it works. My goal in using a probiotic is to support the gut health of my cats in order to provide improved immune system function and protection against potential bacteria/parasites to which they may be exposed - both from the food I feed them, and stuff I introduce to our home, because I interact with ferals multiple times a day, we rescue on occasion, and who knows what I bring in here despite all the precautions I take.

LDG said:

Did you click on the 1 star to read the bad reviews? (16 out of 114; the 5 stars are 66 out of 114).

There was one complaint of the probiotic causing a rash; the rest were mostly people for whom it didn't work, didn't work better than what they were using, or caused gas & bloating. But for the most part, these are people (according to info in the reviews) that have IBD/IBS and clearly some for whom this may not be a good probiotic.

Part of the problem, however, is that the probiotic changed its formulation and its name - and I don't know when that happened. So how many of the reviews were written prior to the new formulation?

I'm not providing the probiotic to help manage IBD or IBS (though it has been shown to alleviate inflammation-related diarrhea: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3296087/ ).

I suggest that if anyone's interested in a (human grade) probiotic for their pet, take it yourself before giving it to your pet.

Gary and I take them (he has IBD), and it hasn't caused any problems for either of us. The cats - I see no difference in them or their stool between this probiotic and the one we were using, Natural Factors double-strength Acidophilus+Bifidus with goat milk. But they have only been on it a few weeks.

If the cats liked s. boulardii, and I could have just added it to the probiotic I was using, I would have gone that route. But they hate it, and I see why. S. boulardii is very bitter, so nearly impossible to hide in food. Yet I want them to have s. boulardii, because of the protection it provides for specific problems we may encounter because I feed raw meat. As you can see in the "good" reviews, it does help those with C. diff. It resolved C. perf in a TCS' member's cats without the use of antibiotics; it resolved coccidia in kittens we rescued without antibiotics. And in the NIH paper to which I provided a link above, when used with metronadizole (flagyl), it resolved giardia 100% in two week, where without it, 17% of those treated still had giardia cysts.

Ultimately, it depends upon your goal in the use of probiotics. For resolving symptoms of IBD, there is conflicting evidence of S. boulardii (alone) helping. For resolving and providing protection against parasitic and certain bacterial infections, there is compelling evidence it works. My goal in using a probiotic is to support the gut health of my cats in order to provide improved immune system function and protection against potential bacteria/parasites to which they may be exposed - both from the food I feed them, and stuff I introduce to our home, because I interact with ferals multiple times a day, we rescue on occasion, and who knows what I bring in here despite all the precautions I take.

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I read the 1- and 2-star reviews. I realize the overall rating is 4/5, but total 27 out of 114 reviews=23% dissatisfied. I've learned that online reviews tend to be positive, so anything over 15% negative I take a closer look at. Doesn't mean I won't buy, but I start looking at why people were dissatisfied. In this case I was wondering about the people who said the probiotic actually made them feel worse. And then there's a few curious comments about the company ethics. Something about them being connected with a website that was confusing similar to Kaiser Permanente, "Kaiser Health Institute" or something like that. The website for the Kaiser organization praised the probiotics and I guess a lot of people thought that was misleading. Who knows, though, according to the reviewers the website was taken down.

I don't understand about the s. boulardii being bitter tasting. How does the nexabiotic get around the bitter taste? Wouldn't it still taste bitter in the probiotic mixture?

:dk: Maybe because the s. boulardii is approx 5 billion of 30? I used the Jarrow 5 billion S. boulardii + MOS (MannanOligoSaccharides). Maybe the MOS part is what's bitter? :dk:

So I was doing a little looking online, and found Jarrow pet dophilus. It says its 4 billion probiotic organisms per gram, which seems perfect. Anyone had any experience with them? The product is just in my price rang.

Hmmm.... according to Jarrow, one gram is 1/4 teaspoon, and is 1 billion CFU, and the suggested dose for a cat is 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon (so 500m to 1 billion CFU). http://www.jarrow.com/product/145/Pet_Dophilus

Jarrow is a reputable company, that much I know.

But just FYI, at Amazon, the Pet Dophilus costs $11.50 per 2.5 oz bottle. The Nexabiotic costs $19.76 per bottle, and has 60 capsules.

Directions for Jarrow Pet Dophilus, if using 1g per cat daily, means that 2.5 ounce bottle has about 71 servings in it (2.5 ounces x 28.35 grams per ounce = 70.875g per bottle). At $11.50, that is $0.16 per serving.

The Nexabiotic, at $19.76 per bottle with 60 pills, each pill costs $0.33: with the dose being 1/2 a pill daily (1/4 am and 1/4 pm) means the cost per daily amount is $0.16.

LDG said:

But just FYI, at Amazon, the Pet Dophilus costs $11.50 per 2.5 oz bottle. The Nexabiotic costs $19.76 per bottle, and has 60 capsules.

Directions for Jarrow Pet Dophilus, if using 1g per cat daily, means that 2.5 ounce bottle has about 71 servings in it (2.5 ounces x 28.35 grams per ounce = 70.875g per bottle). At $11.50, that is $0.16 per serving.

The Nexabiotic, at $19.76 per bottle with 60 pills, each pill costs $0.33: with the dose being 1/2 a pill daily (1/4 am and 1/4 pm) means the cost per daily amount is $0.16.

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Thanks for breaking that down for me! I guess they cost about the same then, huh? I'm guessing you would still suggest the Nexabiotic, but what are the major differences between the two? Jarrow seems like it may be easier to put in his food, being a powder. Yet, I read you're not supposed to give it with a meal - so the Nex pill break up could work better.

Well, I don't give my cats the capsule. I just open the capsule and sprinkle the powder in it on the food.

The differences are they have completely different strains of probiotic, and one has 1 billion active CFU (Pet dophilus) and one - at the 1/4 capsule dose - has 7.5 billion CFU.

I'm not familiar enough with the probiotic strains in the pet dophilus to know what it does.