PROBIOTICS TO PREVENT REPEATED CYSTITIS Certain people including some post-menopausal women are prone to repeated episodes of cystitis.

Mainstream medicine isnt very good at stopping cystitis coming back repeatedly. Antibiotics work to a certain extent but cause side-effects in the woman and resistance in the bacteria. An alternative is to try replacing the harmful bacteria in the body with harmless bacteria such as those contained in probiotic capsules (Patient.co.uk 2012) & (NeLM 2012). One study showed that probiotics were almost as good as antibiotics at reducing the number of episodes of cystitis: women whod had 7 infections during the year before treatment had about 3 during the year on either an antibiotic or a probiotic. The study also showed that the rate of resistance to antibiotics went up from around 30% to around 90% in women on an antibiotic and didnt change in the women on a probiotic (Beerepoot et al. 2012). Probiotics are not standardised in the way mainstream medications are but it seems that a preparation similar to the preparation used in the study cited above is Renew Life Ultimate Flora Critical Care which contains 50 billion Bifidobacteria, Lactobacilli and Lactococci per capsule and can be bought through Amazon for about 1 a capsule, the dose being one capsule twice a day long-term (Amazon 2012).
REFERENCES

Amazon, 2012. Renew Life Ultimate Flora Critical Care 50 Billion Enteric Coated 30 Vegetable Capsules. Beerepoot, M.A. et al., 2012. Lactobacilli vs Antibiotics to Prevent Urinary Tract Infections: A Randomized, Double-blind, Noninferiority Trial in Postmenopausal Women. Archives of Internal Medicine May 14, 2012, 172(9), pp.704712. NeLM, 2012. Clinical review: Probiotics, National electronic Library for Medicines. Available at: http://www.nelm.nhs.uk/en/NeLM-Area/News/2010---March/08/Clinical-review-Probiotics/ [Accessed September 30, 2012]. Patient.co.uk, 2012. Probiotics and Prebiotics, Patient.co.uk Professional Reference. Available at: http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/Probiotics-and-Prebiotics.htm [Accessed September 30, 2012].