any tips on preventing food intolerance post antibiotics?

[realitychick]

My son needs some very strong antibiotics and has quite a delicate stomach anyway. I've just read (mainly on MN) that they can lead to lactose and other food intolerances or stomach/digestion problems. Does anyone know (or know of a website that can advise) if there's a way to prevent this through diet. Should he avoid milk while he's taking them?

He's been through enough and I'd like to make sure he doesn't follow this with yet one more tummy pain. He's skinny enough already.

well, probiotics of course :)

(didn't realise, do they treat giardia with a/bs - or have I got your dss mixed up?)

What was the giardia test, was it a stool test for parasites?

Hi nightcat, thanks for showing interest again. Yes they treat giardia with huge doses of antibiotics, and yes it's the same ds.

I'm being dense: what exactly is a probiotic - is it something like those yoghurt drinks? And if so, should I wait until after the antibiotic course has finished - would they interfere with the effectiveness of the drug if I gave them at the same time?

So far all I could think of to do was make home made burgers with huge amounts of garlic in them as I know that's a natural antibacterial.

Yes, stool test - what fun!

Probiotics are the good bacteria that live in the gut and help break up the foods for absorption (among other good things!), this then causes digestive problems. Some even contribute to viatmin production & absorption.
A/bs will wipe the gut flora out if given as a tablet. Some countries actually do injections which are (possibly) a tad better.
My ds as a baby had v high dose of a/bs that gave him prolonged diarrhea and as I didn't know about a/bs then, it was a prolonged nightmare. Then he had a prolonged period of constipation (a result of dairy intolerance). Then he had fungal issues and eventually gluten problems (he would have been susceptible to that genetically speaking, but the early a/bs we probably the trigger for it all). A few years on when I got to understand it all better, we added probiotics. Over years we have managed to rebuild his health.
There are various schools on this, I personally think it's best to have them when treating with a/bs as well as for a long time afterwards for the sort-of damage limitation. Have a read <a class="break-all" href="//(www.gaps.me/?page_id=20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here for general idea.

Yoghourts are only quite basic, but they are better than nothing, I used capsules with 27 strains of bacteria in them. Mine were Biokult as I am a fan of dr Natasha Campbell McBride and she has formulated them. She wrote a very good book too :)

That's really helpful, thanks.

Sorry - link doesn't seem to be working. Sends me back to MN menu instead.

gosh sorry, not sure how THAT happened, try this

Nightcat I've just skim read it. It's really interesting. Thanks for the link.

RC, that was the best write-up on probiotics I have ever come across :)