Probiotics Aren’t Always the Answer

Probiotics get marketed like they’re a cure-all. Constipation? Take a probiotic. Diarrhea? Probiotic. Anxiety? Skin problems? Bad hair day? Probiotic.

But here’s the thing:

Throwing random probiotics at your gut is like throwing seeds on bad soil. If the environment isn’t right, nothing good grows.

For some people, probiotics can actually make symptoms worse… especially if you have SIBO, histamine intolerance, or yeast overgrowth.

That’s because the “good” bacteria in probiotics can feed the wrong microbes or throw your balance even further off. I see this often in clients across Utah who come to me frustrated that their expensive probiotics either did nothing or made their bloating worse.

The gut is an ecosystem.

If it’s inflamed or overrun with pathogens, adding in more bacteria doesn’t fix the imbalance… it just changes the chaos. That’s why functional medicine takes a step back: sometimes the first step is clearing out the bad guys, healing the gut lining, or working on diet and stress before adding probiotics.

Another big factor? Not all probiotics are created equal.

There are dozens of different strains, and each has a different function. A strain that helps constipation may not help diarrhea. A strain that supports immunity may aggravate someone with histamine intolerance. Without testing and a tailored approach, it’s mostly guesswork.

The functional lens is about precision, not guessing.

Sometimes we need to clear out pathogens first, sometimes we need prebiotics (the food for bacteria), and sometimes we need to focus on the gut lining before adding in more bugs.

So here’s the deal:

If you’ve tried probiotics and they didn’t work (or made you feel worse) stop wasting money. Book a consult, and let’s run the right labs so we know exactly what your gut needs (and what it doesn’t).