Antibiotics: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I strongly dislike antibiotics... For such good intentions they might carry, they're pretty harmful... but... what scares me is that not many people know how dangerous they can be!  Some people do, but there are SO MANY people that are hacking up a lung and saying, “Don’t worry, I’m on antibiotics, so I’ll get better soon.”  Or, “My immune system must be pretty great with as many antibiotics I’ve been on!”  That one about knocked me over.  And I’ve heard it SEVERAL times.

Antibiotics are very dangerous things.  Let me tell you what’s going on in our guts:

Adult humans have about 3-4 POUNDS of bacteria and yeast in our intestinal tract.  Yuck, right?  Wrong actually, you may think of bacteria as a bad thing, but in this case, they’re very very good!  They do a lot of things for us, one of them being create Vitamin B out of the food we send through our intestines.  They also keep the yeast in check, which is a very good thing, because if those little guys get out of control, oh boy… look out… Trust me from my personal experience, it’s not pretty.  These guys can eat away at your intestinal walls too, changing the very structure of them, and leaving you weak against things you used to be strong against (they can lead to food allergies!), and to make matters worse, they cause us to crave unhealthy things like sugars and carbohydrates in breads and pastas, as these are the very things the yeast feed off of to grow.  See how important it is to have the good bacteria in your system?  These little wardens are keeping the balance to help you stay healthy.  Some examples are Lactobacillus and Acidophilus, which are acid-forming bacteria you can find in yogurt.  There are some that are good AND bad too, like E. Coli, which is in EVERYONE’S intestinal tracts and even on our skin!  It helps us extract nutrients from the food we eat.  But if we come in contact with it in bad meat, then it’s not such a nice bacteria…

Unfortunately, some bad bacteria can find their way in that you never want there in the first place, such as Streptococci (which causes strep throat) or Pneumococci (which causes, you guessed it, pneumonia).  And we get really really sick, which is no good and no fun.  Enter in antibiotics.  Okay, okay, so in these cases I guess they’re a blessing in disguise, until we find safer ways to combat these dangerous illnesses.  I would experiment with it and look for natural remedies to fight off the dangerous bacteria, buuuutttt that’s way too big of a risk to take right now.  I’m much more comfortable experimenting with the common cold, or things that won’t kill me.  In the meantime, I guess I’ll take an antibiotic if I contract something evil and deadly.  I had to recently, actually.  I came down with a urinary tract infection (horray for the life of a new mom…) and did everything I could think of to fight it off naturally (which, by the way, has worked in the past) such as cranberry pills (since I hate cranberry juice, yuck), Echinacea and vitamin C, increased probiotics (getting to that in a moment), and mannose supplements I found at the health food store in town.  Nothing was working.  And I know not to mess around with these things – these infections can travel up your ureter and into your kidneys, and then you’ve REALLY got a problem.  So I finally, reluctantly, went to my OBGYN (not to an MD, partly because I don’t have one of those and didn’t want to go through the process of becoming a new patient, and mainly because after my penicillin incident I’m a little leery of MDs…) and she ran a culture, and E. Coli happened to be the intruder.  And it was getting pretty out of control.  So out came the antibiotic prescription (NOT penicillin, since that can kill me now) and off to the pharmacy I trudged.  With a pretty little snarl on my face.

So, if these antibiotics can kill off those evil deadly bacteria, why do I harbor such a hatred towards them?  Because they don’t JUST kill off the bad bacteria.  They kill off ALL the bacteria.  EVERYTHING.  Even those happy little guys keeping the yeast in check and making us some nice vitamin B.  Dead.  Now if you’re someone that rushes to get an antibiotic for yourself or your kid at the first sign of a possible infection, think about what your intestines must be looking like by now… Craving some pasta or candy, are we?  Or getting sick more often than you think is normal?  Know what else can happen when these bacteria are all gone?  Your whole system can lose balance.  Dormant cancer cells (yes, we all have them) don’t have anything to keep them dormant, and they are free to fester and grow.  Food allergies you may have developed from the lining of your intestines getting messed up can develop into things like diabetes or Crohn’s disease or what have you.  Or horrible yeast infections (*raises hand to represent*).  Scary, isn’t it?  And if something this serious doesn’t happen to you, you still risk missing out on important nutrients your body needs to stay healthy because the good bacteria aren’t there to extract it from the food you eat.  You also risk getting sick again and again and again, as there’s nothing to help your body learn how to defend itself on its own to prevent sickness the next time around.

Okay, so what do we do about this?  Well, first of all, don’t jump to take antibiotics so quickly unless your life is in danger.  Find alternative methods to get well.  But if you have no immediate choice other than to surrender to antibiotics, like I experienced when I was at risk for my situation turning into a kidney infection if left unchecked, then what? Replenish the good bacteria, of course!  Now you already learned that good bacteria is in yogurt, but you’re going to need to eat a LOT of yogurt to get your gut back in check – eating yogurt kind of only gives you a maintenance dose of probiotics.  Fortunately, you can get them in capsules in the refrigerated section of your local health food store.  I take a multi probiotic, the bottle says there are 20 billion live cultures in them… that’s a lot!  And when I was on antibiotics, I was taking about 8 capsules a day.  Hopefully that was enough…  Another good idea when you’re on antibiotics is avoid sugar (yes, carbohydrates too, they break down into sugar), since yeast feeds on sugar and without the friendly bacteria keeping them in check, you don’t want to help their situation that much more.  Taking immune-boosting supplements like Echinacea or garlic are good too, to help feed the good bacteria and nurse them back to health so they can report to duty and keep those yeast at bay.  But definitely definitely definitely take probiotics!  If the antibiotics are killing everything off in the first place, then your immune-boosting supplements have no good bacteria to support, and avoiding sugar will only give you grief.  Take those probiotics!!

Are they safe for kids?  Absolutely!  I’ve got Harlee on one every day and have since he was born.  When he was a baby I only gave them to him if he was taking a bottle of my pumped milk by pouring half a capsule of the probiotic powder into the bottle with the milk and shaking it until it disperses.  It wasn’t all that often, but being breastfed helped his system anyway so I wasn’t that strict about it.  If you’re doing formula they actually make probiotics for babies that you can mix in with it.  Now that Harlee is a little older I’ll put a whole capsule into his juice or milk every day.  He’s been going to daycare, playing outside as the weather has been dropping, and carrying on his daily life with nothing more than a bit of a runny nose.  Knock on wood!

A side note, before I wrap this up, think about where else antibiotics are used… Yes, in livestock.  Sure, it makes the farmer’s life easier not having to worry about their cattle dying from infections, but these antibiotics lock their evil little bodies into the cattle’s bodies, and also pass through their milk… So think about that when you buy that sirloin steak for dinner tonight, or that carton of milk for you and your kids to drink.  You’re consuming all the antibiotics (and steroids, and artificial growth hormones, but I’ll save that for a different day) that were injected into that animal while it was alive.  And they can have a similar effect on you as though you just got a bottle from the pharmacy.  Yummy!  In this case I feel it’s worth the extra few bucks to buy organic milk rather than the cheaper, “regular” stuff.  Grass-fed, organic meat too.  Fortunately my hubby is a deer hunter and stocks our freezer fairly well every year, and I’m pretty sure nobody’s out there shooting antibiotics into the wildlife!  I’ll admit I’ll take the easy way out and not buy organic when it comes to beef or pork or chicken… but I (hopefully) justify this with the thought that we don’t eat it THAT often… I’ll probably end up doing a little more research on this and decide to only buy organic meat too, even if it means driving an hour to Whole Foods to get it!  I do buy organic milk, though, because (thank God) IGA stocks it.  I need to ask them to stock organic meat too…

Anyway, just some food for thought!  Here’s a great article to read about bacteria and antibiotics, and a little history too.  Now go get some probiotics and boost your immune system!  It is cold and flu season, after all!