Creating #DigestiveHealth with 4X Pro-B from #Costco #CBias

Many of you may have noticed (and I have received a few emails asking as well) that Madison hasn’t actively been in a lot of pictures on our blog recently.  It’s definitely not because I don’t love the kid (sigh – an 11 year old is seriously hard to deal with sometimes!), but she has had some issues going on behind the scenes that make her want to stay out of the public eye a little bit.

We talked about it – and she was okay with it – so we’re laying it out here.  Not that it’s something huge (well – it was huge for us), because we had no idea what was going on for the last year (more so the last few months).  Maddy has NOT been feeling well.  At all.  She was steadily gaining weight, even after we changed up the food options in the house drastically, and even when she was becoming more active at school and outside play.  She had the worst dark circles under her eyes that were not improving, no matter how much sleep she got.  Stomach aches all the time – in fact, you could almost set your watch to the timing of stomach issues.  She was calling me three out of five days a week at school because her stomach was in agony, she was constantly in the bathroom, on and on and on.  She HATED taking pictures and didn’t want me posting any really recent photos of herself on her.

Kids started to make fun of her at school, too.  As a Mom, I can’t really tell you how much that breaks my heart.  Not fair for her at all.

The kiddo was not feeling like herself, and we were truly at a loss as to what in the world was going on.

I’m so happy we changed doctors and found one who listened to our problems (we seriously love our pediatrician and she had better come back from maternity leave after she has her baby, or I may cry) – we ultimately found out that Madison has a few problems that have never affected any other member of our family.  First, she is lactose intolerant (I knew how to handle this one, as Zachary and I have this mildly – though Zachary seems to have outgrown this).  Second, she is gluten intolerant.  That threw us completely for a loop.  Third, she has IBS.  Ugh.  The revelation of the last two explained a heck of lot of issues that was going on with her body, and explained why she was gaining weight versus losing – her body wasn’t processing her nutrients properly, and was hanging onto food.

The very first thing the pediatrician recommended that we do was put her on a good probiotic – and honestly, this ended up working out wonderfully because a few days before she was diagnosed with all of this, I was asked to try 4X Pro-B natural probiotics out.  After getting the green light from the pediatrician, we headed home with a list of new things to look forward to in life (yay for gluten free everything under the sun?), and appointments set up to meet with another doctor for nutritional help.

And of course, the 4X Pro-B ready to go!

I needed to order another box online – since Madison and I would both be taking the probiotics, one package wouldn’t last long.  I headed to Costco.com to purchase another supply (you can see my Google + shopping trip here); the website was super easy to navigate, and I was happy to see them arrive at my door step within 4 days of my ordering them.

And now it’s time for everyone to giggle like schoolgirls!

We actually were shown a very similar chart in the doctor’s office – I’m sure you can imagine the laughing and red faced chuckles that were coming out from my kid.  But the chart tells the truth.  If you do not have good digestive health, you’re setting yourself up for a lot of problems down the road – which all tied into some of Maddy’s problems.  Her scores were pretty bad when we first took this in the office.  And my score?  Wellll….I was kind of middle of the road.

Since I have already changed my diet so much, I was anxious to have better digestive health myself.  I definitely have enough  fiber in my diet – veggies are a HUGE staple in my every day meals! – but you know…let’s face it.  Sometimes you need a little more than just veggies, right?

Something that I really liked about these particular probiotics is that they were in pill form – since Maddy is lactose intolerant, taking something like Activa would be a no-no.  And truth be told, Activa makes you stink.  I won’t go into specifics – but…well, Jack can tell you.

Zachary, the nosy busy body, asked what the colorful box of probiotics were as he saw Maddy and I reading the box and talking about them.  I tried to explain to him what they did, and he excitedly yelled out, “Oh!!  These medicines help you poop??” while grabbing his rear end.

Yup.  They do.

So…we’ll report back at the end of the month and let you all know how Maddy’s feeling and how things have been going with 4X Pro-B.  I’m really crossing fingers that my kiddo is back to being a happy, bouncy girl again – I feel so sad that she’s been so under the weather.

Bottoms up!

No pun intended.

This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias.  All opinions are my own.  And my daughter’s.  And occasionally, my nosy 3 year old and jerk cat, who likes to bat around the pill packages like they’re his personal toys.  Jerk cat.