Actually, fenugreek and fennel are both *good* for digestion. Fenugreek helps soothe the membranes lining of the GI tract, and fennel is especially good for expelling gas.

To be effective for reducing inflammation, bromelain would be best taken on an empty stomach. Since it's a proteolytic enzyme which breaks down proteins (meat tenderizers are the same type of enyzmes derived from papayas), bromelain is often used as a digestive aid too. When you take it along with food though, there's usually very little left over after the digestive process to be absorbed into the bloodstream so it can travel throughout the body to "digest" and break down inflammation wherever it's occurring. From everything I've heard over the years, bromelain isn't usually very hard on the stomach, but my personal experience seems to be the exception to that rule. Every time *I've* tried taking it on an empty stomach, it upsets my stomach.

I've never heard of anyone having a problem with echinacea. The only time it's contraindicated is if you have an auto-immune disorder because of the way it jump starts the immune system and would cause your body to attack itself even more. Most herbs like that though are best taken along with food to avoid any stomach upset.

You should also consider taking some antifungal supplements and probiotics since you've had so much damage to your digestive tract from taking antibiotics. That's how I nearly died about nine years ago. The antibiotics kill the good bacteria that normally live in the GI tract and that allows candida yeast to grow out of control. You can take things like pau d'arco, grapefruit seed extract, and oil of oregano to kill the yeast, then replace them with the acidophilus and bifidus bacteria that the antibiotics killed off.