Haha, I guess sometimes you just have to take matters into your own hands! Er...crotch!
I take VSL
#3 . They say you need to be working with a "medical professional" to buy it, but you can buy it off of their website without a prescription or note. I think they just say that to cover their butts. My nutritionist and GP recommended it as a possible solution to various issues I have (IBS, severe bloating, eczema, brain fog, fatigue...I have a long list of "nuisance" ailments like that). I was trying to suss out a food intolerance, and I did (nightshades, especially potatoes!), but they both suspected I needed to do more than restrict my diet.
It's super expensive. I take the lowest recommended dose because of that (2 pills daily). And I can't imagine being able to afford to stay on it forever, which is too bad because ingested probiotics tend not to live in the digestive system for more than a few weeks without taking them regularly. Your indigenous flora just eventually wins out every time.
But VSL is one of the few probiotics that has been studied enough to show that it definitely makes it through the digestive tract to take up residence in the colon as long as you take it daily, and it has proven benefits for certain gut disorders. It has way, way more bacteria than anything you can find OTC (which is maybe why it persists so well in the GI tract), and I think 8 different strains. I did find a dramatic improvement in my gut health, eczema, and general inflammation and level of energy after being on it for a while. Going off potatoes surely helped me, too, but I think the VSL did a lot.
If you do buy it (or really any probiotic), my nutritionist recommended starting slow. Only take half a pill the first few days, then bump up to one, then bump up to two. You can have some bloating at first when you start taking it, so slowly building up is easier on the gut.
But maybe if you're generally healthy and not having problems, an OTC probiotic would be enough. I preferred to have one that was proven to survive the upper GI because I really needed the help, but if it's just added insurance, maybe something less intense would be fine!