Natural alternative to Nystatin?

September 23, 2010

Hello,

I'm the " concerned about mushy-poop " lady. All this past year we've been

treating our 4 year old son, (DS/ASD) with Nystatin. I was very

concerned about his mushy poops and thought that they were mushy because of

a severe gut dysbiosis...rampant yeast and other bacteria. When we took him

off of Nystatin for a couple months as we implemented the GAPS diet, his

poops became normal! Yay! But...he began to display evidence of yeast

infection once we started chelation, so I put him back on Theramedix/CDX and

Nystatin. Almost immediately, his poops became mushy and really

foul-smelling. I was told that this was because the yeast was dying off.

Well, the yeast had all of this past year to die-off but his poops never

became normal until we took him *off* of Nystatin.

I called the pharmaceutical company who makes the stuff (Mutual

Pharmaceuticals) and found out that diarrhea and/or loose stools is a

side-effect of Nystatin! So, I'm relieved to know why he has had terrible

poops all year but mad that we spent so much energy/time/money in trying one

thing after another with no results when all along, it was the dang

Nystatin. Too bad he apparently will need to be on a long-term maintenance

level of something to keep the yeast at bay. And I don't want to just

accept the mushy stools either - I don't think he's absorbing his

food/supplements well and besides, normal poops are a good baseline for

determining his reaction to foods we hope to re-introduce to him.

So.

I'm curious if anyone else has experienced this with Nystatin - and I'm

curious: is there a natural alternative to Nystatin to keep yeast at bay -

one without a side-effect of mushy stools? Granted, the other " inactive "

ingredients could also be causing him problems (inactive ingredients:

anhydrous lactose, carnauba wax, corn starch, FD & C Blue #2 Aluminum Lake,

FD & C Red #40 Aluminum Lake, hydroxy propyl cellulose, hypromellose,

magnesium sterate, microchristaline cellulose, polyethylene glycol,

povidone, sodium starch glycolate, stearic acid, titanium dioxide). I was

told the word " Aluminum " just referred to the color of the dye used.

The only idea I have would be to try and crowd out the yeast with more and

more probiotics instead of Nystatin - but that sounds really expensive since

I'm sure it would take A LOT.

Thanks for your help/ideas, as ever,

Kathy in France

with , 4 (DS/ASD), Genna (NT, 21 months) and hubby (soon-to-be PhD)

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