I Hate Antibiotics

Waking up at 3 o’clock in the morning is a terrible feeling, but to wake up to find your stomach pulsating with pain?  I can’t really think of a worst way to be awoken.  Worst of all, this is beginning to become a pattern for me.  But I think I have a reason for this…

I’ve been having these stomach issues ever since I was put on antibiotics after my wisdom teeth removal back in October.  I was in very good health before the procedure having not been sick for at least six months.  But ever since that gosh-darn surgery, I simply haven’t been 100%.   It has been almost two months of revolving health issues.

It all began with an infection in the area where one of my wisdom teeth were removed three weeks after the surgery.  They said this was a very rare occurrence because I had fully healed, or seemed to have fully healed, from the surgery.  I was chewing foods and taking names!  But one day, after performing some light exercises, my cheek suddenly started to inflame with pain and swell up.  The rest of the night was spent in relative discomfort as my cheek tripled in size.

So, the very next morning, I went to see the dentist.  Apparently none of the dentists who took a look at my cheek had really seen anything like this before.  Never had they seen a cheek swell up so long after the surgery, as well as after it had apparently fully healed.  While I do not, and probably never will, absolutely know why this happened, I have a theory that I ate some almonds that were not properly prepared and probably had some type of mold on them as a result.  After eating too many of these incredibly crunchy almonds, I believe some of the bacteria from the mold on the almonds may have caused the infection somehow.

Getting back to the dentist trip, the dentist was actually able to pop the area of the infection like a zit.  It was sort of a last minute idea he had before he sent me on my way, but he was able to get a good amount of puss out.  This was very good news because it meant the infection was on a very superficial (not deeply seeded in the wound) level. The bad news about this whole affair, however, was that I was put on a second wave of antibiotics.

Now, there are a lot of situations where antibiotics are overused.  I had a friend who recently received antibiotics for a viral infection.  (Yeah, think that one over…) But, in my case, antibiotics were probably necessary. HOWEVER, what the antibiotics ended up causing makes me wonder if I was better off with the infection being left untreated.

If you think about it, do antibiotics really heal anything?  Or do they just “heal” through destruction?  Now, I can’t say that I know everything about antibiotics, but I do know that they do more than just destroy the bacteria causing the infection in your body.  They also destroy all the good bacteria that lives in your gut!  Bacteria that is crucial for your health and well-being.  Not to mention, they make your life infinitely easier.  When you take antibiotics, it’s almost seems like dropping a nuke inside your stomach.  It’s the Pasteur reasoning.  If the bacteria is not present, than the organism can not get sick. But they don’t take into account the innocent victims (in this case, the good bacteria in your gut) that are wrongly killed off.

I am truly beginning to believe that the double round of antibiotics I had to take “naplamed” any  good bacteria I had in my stomach that resulted in making my stomach extremely sensitive, thus resulting in the string of stomach aches that have plagued me the past couple weeks.

Now, I realize that some of you out there may not be familiar with the importance of having this “good” bacteria in your stomach.  I plan on addressing this sometime in the future, but in the mean time, take a look at Dr. Joseph Mercola’s great blog.  (And I mean GREAT.)  Dr. Mercola provides amazingly useful information that seems to get squelched by Conventional Wisdom (i.e. Medical Doctors, media, etc…).

Here’s a link to an article by Mercola on antibiotics & this good bacteria stuff.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2003/06/18/antibiotics-bacteria.aspx

There is so much more to talk about when it comes to good bacteria and bad bacteria- like dysbiosis, G.A.P.S. diet, etc…-,  but I’m still feeling weak with this whole stomach thing. I hope all of you out there are fighting off sicknesses better than I am.

Take care,

E.M.R