Soothing My Poor Belly (Danone Actimel Original)

Name: wigglylittleworm

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Product:	Danone Actimel Original
Date:	28/06/08 (174 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Helps stop runny tummy when taking antibiotics

Disadvantages: Fairly expensive, a lot of packaging

Have I told you about how my dentist butchered my mouth yet? No? Well I'll save that for another day. The end result is a pretty massive infection that has spread from my mouth to my sinuses and I'm now on my third course of double strength antibiotics in two months to try and sort it out.

Antibiotics are great, a marvel of modern medicine. The problem is that broad spectrum antibiotics also kill all of the bacteria normally present in our gut that help us digest food. This is why diarrhoea is so common when we take antibiotics.

All of the antibiotics I've been taking had left me with a very upset tummy so when I saw some actimel I decided to try them. I bought a pack of four 100g bottles for 99p in the spar shop.

These drinks are probiotic drinking yoghurt with L.casei Imunitass culture added and are made by Danone. They work by supporting the immune system by topping up the levels of good bacteria in the gut.

The drinks themselves taste ok, like a fairly bland sweetened natural yoghurt. They have some tanginess to them and leave my mouth feeling dry. I wouldn't drink them for taste alone and I'm not too happy about using 72 of my daily calorie allowance to drink them either. That's the calories in half a can of coke and I'd get a lot more pleasure drinking that! For me it's a case of just downing them because they are good for me.

I do have a gripe with the amount of packaging used. I would prefer a bigger bottle which you could measure out yourself each morning rather than having loads of little plastic pots to throw away.

I can say that these drinks have had a massive effect on my poor tummy. On the days when I don't drink them I have had a very upset belly and on the days I remember to have one my stomach has been a lot more settled. I read on the actimel website that they have been using them in hospitals in London lately on patients who are on antibiotics and they have a beneficial effect so I'm glad there is evidence backing up their usefulness.

Once I have finished my antibiotics, I wont be taking these drinks any more as I don't really think there's much benefit in an otherwise healthy person drinking them but when I have antibiotics in the future I will make sure I stock up on some of these again.

Summary: A drink for when you're taking antibiotics