Re: Establishing gut flora

It's not just a matter of taking huge quantities of probiotics; in lots of these products, the bacterias don't even reach the gut if they are not enteric coated. Or if they reach the gut, they are transient bacterias that are not meant to stay in normal human intestines so they don't colonize. If the probiotic you take are enteric coated and belong to the non transient species of bacterais, they still might not colonize the gut, due to a number of factors--inadequate Ph in the gut for instance.
Shroom even proposed the theory that mast cells (present when one has allergies) "eat" good bacterias.
A friend of mine had a vaginal yeast infection; she had a test done, the count of good bacterias in her vagina was very low. She decided to stuff herself with probiotics (orally and vaginally) for 2 months, paying attention to the question of transient versus non transient strands etc.
She had a new test done after 2 months; the good bacteria count was the same. Go figure!