Oops I Did It Again: The Flu Take 2

Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment. Maybe I'm a Bear of Very Little Brain. Maybe I just needed more material to fill my blog. Whatever the reason, I decided to try the sprinkle-the-probiotic-directly-on-your-tongue experiment again last night. (Okay, it's none of those reasons. It's because the intense die-off reaction that I experienced last week was an indicator that I do, indeed, have an imbalance of flora in my upper GI tract, and that I do need to work at correcting that imbalance.) 

I was much more conservative in my approach, however. Instead of sprinkling approximately 10 billion microbes onto my tongue, I only used about 1-2 billion. That may seem like a huge number, but I swallow between 40 and 60 billion microbes from commercial probiotic supplements daily, and I consume water kefir, Kombucha, sauerkraut juice, and another raw probiotic juice tonic from a local sauerkraut maker. So 1-2 billion microbes should be next to nothing. It sure doesn't feel like next to nothing. 

I brushed my teeth for bed and then sprinkled the probiotic on my tongue so it would inoculate my mouth, nasal passages, and esophagus without having to worry about it being washed away with food or drink. Before I fell asleep last night, my nose started running and I started coughing. When I woke up this morning, I had reflux, a double ear ache, and laryngitis. My throat hurts whenever I swallow. I've been feeling a bit feverish, but I'm hoping that I don't once again develop a full blown fever. I don't think I will since this dose was much smaller and my symptoms have been less severe, but maybe I should be a bit more conservative next time. 

I'm going to cut the dose in half again and press on. This is a good indication that what I am doing is effective. I just need the symptoms to be a little milder so I can do all the things that I need to do without constantly feeling sick. 

It's actually kind of nice, in a weird way, to have a milder version of the "flu" die off reaction that I had last week. I was sure while I was experiencing it that it was die off. But the farther away I got from it the more I began to second guess myself. Maybe my symptoms were just a random illness? Maybe it had nothing to do with my probiotic? Maybe I coincidentally suffered from a fever inducing infection, severe reflux, and an entire mouth tooth ache all at the same time? But this second illness, also starting within an hour of taking my probiotic, reaffirms my previous suspicions. And just to think, these fever inducing pathogenic microbes are hanging out in my body ready to multiply unchecked since I have too many of the bad guys and not enough of the good guys. It's time to bring things back into balance.