Tulsamom, I’ve been getting good results from VSL for about ten years. I was able to persuade my insurance company to cover the DS version, but it was a year-long fight. My sense is that it’s quite close to the Visbiome formula that actually was tested in all that research, but VSL is, apparently, a counterfeit. It’s a high-quality counterfeit, though. I’m staying on the VSL because 1) it works for me, 2) the formula is quite similar to Visbiome, and 3) my insurance company’s policy names VSL specifically, so they almost certainly wouldn’t cover Visbiome.
The capsules and the powder are identical products. The cost per CFU (live bacterium) seemed quite similar among the forms when I compared them some years ago. Dose definitely matters for me - I take a lot: 4 DS packets daily. When I lower the dose I find increased symptoms. I’d have to take 32 capsules daily to get the same dose.
If you have pouchitis VSL alone is probably inadequate to treat it. You’d probably be more successful getting it under control with antibiotics, and then maintaining with VSL.