Janie, I also take a lot: 4 packets per day of VSL #3 DS. Thank goodness my insurance covers it! If you are paying the full retail price then you can comparison shop and try to save some money that way (the prices can differ a lot between pharmacies!). I suspect you will get similar results from VSL #3 and Visbiome, but that’s just a suspicion. VSL does have some savings programs (which I use): https://www.vsl3.com/hcp/acces...d-savings/index.html
If your purpose is to prevent C. Diff then you might get good results with Florastor (S. Boulardi), which is much cheaper than VSL or Visbiome. If your purpose is to manage/reduce pouchitis (like me), then VSL or Visbiome are likely to do the best job.
I don’t really understand what you mean about it being time consuming, though. I just mix it up in some yogurt before/with breakfast and dinner. It takes longer than a pill, but not all that much time. Four packets of regular strength would take exactly as long as two packets of double strength. I sometimes get tired of yogurt twice a day, but that’s a very different issue. It’s certainly true that it’s not all surviving the stomach acid/Cipro/J-pouch challenge, but at a dose of 3.6 trillion per day some of the bugs are probably doing what I need them to do.