18 replies to this topic

[Adamzski]

At 37yo, I have been to the doctor 3 times in my life. After leaving home at 15yo that is.

 

I always though that I might be healthy because of my letting my body deal with common colds, sore throats and other minor ailments on its own. Never had any illness except for your normal colds and a few flu's (no doctor..), Drastic food poisoning twice that may have killed others haha.

 

I think that medication seriously screws you up. Now Antibiotics, never taken then except for a tooth problem twice and maybe wrongly I have believed that this has helped my body learn to deal with things on its own?

 

Am I all wrong about this?

 

Now I have what is a minor sore throat, runny nose and common cold, nothing really and I went to the doctor here in Korea as the drug store where I was buying OTC sleep aids from said that upstairs could hook me up with real sleeping tabs. lol gave me Stilnox! But also he prescribed me all this several pills per day antibiotics and other things for my cold/throat. I wouldnt usually take this but I fly to Rome in 7 days and it would be great to shake my cold off before then.

 

Any harm in 3 days of unneeded antibiotics?

Edited by Adamzski, 13 May 2015 - 03:56 AM.

[Kalliste]

I plan on using them only in true emergency situations in the future. They probably do a lot of stealthy harm to you that is not readily obvious. I suspect they mess with the good bacteria in your GI and select the nasty ones. I also think that even a single use will leave you more open to resistant infections in the future.

Anyway taking antibiotics for the common cold is a bit weird, it's probably a rhinovirus, not a bacteria. What are you hoping to achieve?

[Adamzski]

Yep exactly leave me open to resistant infections. So many people run to doctors and get all these medications for everything. We have great tools inside us to deal with all these minor problems.

 

He said that my throat has an infection tonsillitis. My throat after a strepsil feels fine and yes I wont take these antibiotics.

[niner]

You'll probably be fine, but if the infection spreads to your sinuses or lungs, you could have a mess on your hands.  At that point, you may need to bite the bullet and use an antibiotic.   If you aren't in a hospital environment and you aren't abusing antibiotics, I don't think acquiring a resistant infection is at all likely.  People used to die from bacterial infections all the time.  We've kind of forgotten that.

[niner]

 I also think that even a single use will leave you more open to resistant infections in the future.

 

I don't see how that would work.  You have an infection, get rid of it with the help of antibiotics, and your system re-equilibrates over a period of weeks.  If you used the antibiotics correctly, i.e. you took a full course, where do the resistant bugs come from and why are you more susceptible?

[Kalliste]

There was a lecture on resistance that I attended two years ago, the fine details lost in the mist of my memorys by now. Most was old news, but there was something about a possible lasting effect even when you used the right AB under the right conditions, that left your microbiome permanently altered, it had something to do with horizontal transfer. It seemed not to be very clear cut but my lasting memory was that AB is best avoided until true emergencies (i.e not for the common cold, but obviously necessary if you suffer a debiliating bacterial infection)
I might have a botched memory of this lecture though.

[Adamzski]

I did take one day of the course, wanted to really clear myself up before traveling.

 

Niner, you mentioned taking the full course? My understanding of this is probably all wrong but could it be better to just give your body a little boost to fighting the infection by taking just a few doses? The minimum required dose. It would be hard to judge what this perfect dose is but I'm sure I would be fine in this case without the AB.

[Kalliste]

Thats no good. You will leave the hardy bacteria that survived the first attack ready to repopulate you.

[meth_use_lah]

I did take one day of the course, wanted to really clear myself up before traveling.

 

Niner, you mentioned taking the full course? My understanding of this is probably all wrong but could it be better to just give your body a little boost to fighting the infection by taking just a few doses? The minimum required dose. It would be hard to judge what this perfect dose is but I'm sure I would be fine in this case without the AB.

 

Textbook example of "how to breed antibiotic resistant bacteria".

[Kalliste]

This could bne pesudoscience but I cant check the sources from my phone.
http://naturalsociet...mental-illness/

[xEva]

My understanding of this is probably all wrong but could it be better to just give your body a little boost to fighting the infection by taking just a few doses?

Actually, this approach has a healthy rationale. Marshal Protocol used it (back when they "pulsed" antibiotics). But it also has some risks, which, however, were exaggerated in this thread. In any rate, it's not an easy decision to make. Either way has risks.

[niner]

 

My understanding of this is probably all wrong but could it be better to just give your body a little boost to fighting the infection by taking just a few doses?

Actually, this approach has a healthy rationale. Marshal Protocol used it (back when they "pulsed" antibiotics). But it also has some risks, which, however, were exaggerated in this thread. In any rate, it's not an easy decision to make. Either way has risks.

 

The Marshal Protocol using it isn't exactly a great recommendation.  I don't see where the risks of taking too short of a course of antibiotics have been exaggerated-- that's a good way to generate a population of antibiotic resistant bacteria, and that's what was stated.   And the risk of taking a normal course?   Maybe messing up your gut bacteria, usually a temporary problem, but that risk tends to be exaggerated on the internet as well.  With a normal course, you usually don't mess up your gut.  With a long course you might, or with multi-antibiotic cocktails or huge doses, your risks go up.  The normal course has been designed by, believe it or not, people who actually understand the risks, on both sides of the equation.  The normal course is designed to minimize your overall risk.  If you want to trust a bunch of internet quacks or "trust your gut", as it were, maybe because you don't trust institutions due to a bad experience with school or religion or cops or a bad boss or whatever, well... Look, there are several ways of deciding what is true in the world.  There's Religion, there's your personal limited experience, there's a bunch of guys on the internet with questionable knowledge, motives and credentials, and finally there is science.  I suppose we should add "the sensationalist popular media's usually-wrong take on science" as another possibility.   I'm not going to tell anyone how they should decide what's true, but everyone ought to think about how they make that decision.

[xEva]

The Marshal Protocol using it isn't exactly a great recommendation.

and what exactly makes their hundreds of anecdotal reports about the safety --and efficacy!-- of this approach any worse than similar anecdotal reports of any other site, including this one? In any rate, it's my belief based on personal experience, that for an otherwise healthy person, using a short course of abx (if a few doses can even be called a course), followed by a short fast, which too works on most infections by stimulating autophagy, is a superior way of taking abx. Just like Adamzski said, it gives a boost to the immune sys, helps it out with initial assault and lets it mop up the rest.

But.. as you and others pointed out, there are too many variables here to be recommended as a 'method' suited for all.

[Brett Black]

the drug store where I was buying OTC sleep aids from

 
 
What OTC sleep aids do you use? Isn't that a type of medication?

Edited by Brett Black, 18 May 2015 - 04:04 AM.

[Adamzski]

Its an antihistamine sleeping tab, cant be perfect to take them but I do at times. They gave me a script for Stilnox and yeah nox you out.

 

I dont think it is such a major thing to take just a single course of Antibiotics, it is a good point that any infection could travel to the lungs or other areas, I suppose this is what doctors do they use what they have in their arsenal and try to prevent these worst case scenarios that they have seen first hand. 

 

I wouldn't take any AB again just for a sore throat, have had these symptoms plenty of times before and they just run their course, dont think any of the medication really did much more than fix things up a day sooner.

 

Could of been better off just drugging myself with stilnox for 36hrs and waking for water+vitamin C.

 

Both views of the completion of AB courses, I can see the sense in, would lean towards just taking a day of AB if it was not something serious.

[niner]

 

The Marshal Protocol using it isn't exactly a great recommendation.

and what exactly makes their hundreds of anecdotal reports about the safety --and efficacy!-- of this approach any worse than similar anecdotal reports of any other site, including this one?

 

Antibiotic doses aren't based on anecdote or things appearing on random websites.  They are based on clinical trials.  If the Marshal Protocol could produce good results in a blinded placebo controlled situation, that would be different.

[xEva]

The Marshal Protocol using it isn't exactly a great recommendation.

and what exactly makes their hundreds of anecdotal reports about the safety --and efficacy!-- of this approach any worse than similar anecdotal reports of any other site, including this one?

Antibiotic doses aren't based on anecdote or things appearing on random websites. They are based on clinical trials. If the Marshal Protocol could produce good results in a blinded placebo controlled situation, that would be different.

really? to my knowledge, there is no study --not even a duplicate rat study-- and no human studies whatsoever, on which you could base your C60oo dosages recommendations. This does not prevent you from giving such recommendations to newbies here just about weekly.

Edited by xEva, 18 May 2015 - 01:56 PM.

[niner]

really? to my knowledge, there is no study --not even a duplicate rat study-- and no human studies whatsoever, on which you could base your C60oo dosages recommendations. This does not prevent you from giving such recommendations to newbies here just about weekly.

 

If we had molecularly defined compounds and clinical trials with c60oo, as is the case with antibiotics, then we'd certainly use them.   I don't think that the lack of studies on c60oo is a good reason to ignore the collected knowledge about human use of antibiotics.

[xEva]

really? to my knowledge, there is no study --not even a duplicate rat study-- and no human studies whatsoever, on which you could base your C60oo dosages recommendations. This does not prevent you from giving such recommendations to newbies here just about weekly.

 
If we had molecularly defined compounds and clinical trials with c60oo, as is the case with antibiotics, then we'd certainly use them.   I don't think that the lack of studies on c60oo is a good reason to ignore the collected knowledge about human use of antibiotics.

Likewise, I don't think that the plethora of studies on human use of antibiotics is a good reason to ignore the anecdotal knowledge collected on the same topic.

The major difference here is that the studies look for patterns of use suited for most people, while the individual approach that I advocate requires more knowledge of the topic and, most importantly, take into the account each unique situation.

But I agree with you that alternative use of antibiotics requires much knowledge -- which certainly is not something one can learn from a post on a forum. When in doubt one should follow the general recommendations.

Edited by xEva, 18 May 2015 - 02:31 PM.