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Forget anti-vaxers, now we have anti-antibiotics


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Scarlet fever is strep throat. That's something you give antibiotics for, not something you futz around with.

Sure, there's such a thing as overreliance on antibiotics. As a general matter of principle, I try to use them sparingly as well, same as any medication. But if you have a disease that actually is helped by antibiotics (so, not colds) AND that generally doesn't clear up on its own (so, not ear infections in general, though of course any individual may be more prone to lasting ear infections than the general population) AND ESPECIALLY that can become quite serious and kill you (that definitely includes strep) - for fuck's sake, get over yourself and get treated.

And if you won't, at least obey quarantine guidelines.

On the subject of strep, last year my niece went through it and didn't show any symptoms until the very end. Very, very strange. She wakes up one day with a rash, we take her in, and the doctor says "It looks like she's just finishing up a case of strep." I came down with it two days later, boy was that fun. Had we known she was sick, of course, we would've gotten her treated earlier than the *very end* of the disease. Calling our strep-prone friends to tell them to watch out for their kids wasn't that fun.

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I think people are waiting for that cure all pill. The one that will cure you of everything including cancer and create world peace. They forget that antibiotics are for bacteria. They dont work magically. It will still be a few days before you are feeling better. Antivirus drugs are for viruses. They wont cure you of the flu but they will make it shorter and provide a small amount of symptom relief.

I am allergic to -cillin and sufla drugs too. I will use them when I need them. For instance, I actually had scarlet fever. I did not have strap symptoms. I just broke out into a rash, had a fever, and, felt miserable. Blood culture conformed the fact that I had scarlet fever. It was going around town. I took the course of antibiotics. I felt a lot better after a few days. It took weeks to actually get over it.

I will also take them for ear and sinus infections if they dont clear up on their own with in 3 weeks. During those three weeks, I take decongestant, do sinus flushes and drink lots of water. They usually clear up by themselves. But sometimes they dont. When that happens, I have to go see an ENT. Standard treatment for sinus infections by my ENT is three weeks of antibiotics. The sinuses dont have a large blood flow so you are better off taking a smaller dose for an extended period then a short burst at a higher dose.

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Don't they normally culture for strep though? I remember getting (and hating) the throat swab as a kid, being sent home, then only if it came out positive did we go back to get the druuuuugs.

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Yeah, apparently it can cure everything.

(seriously, it has a list of about 20 or more issues from actual physical illnesses, to mental illnesses, to vague symptoms, to developmental disorders like ADHD and Autism that it claims to cure. IMO as soon as something starts to claim it cures everything, I run far away.)

The biggest problem with GAPS is that it is so restrictive for so long you can run into even more health problems. I've been on the Weston Price diet for the past couple years for some pretty serious autoimmune problems and I've seen dramatic improvements in my energy levels and the way I feel. I rejected conventional medications because I've had really bad reactions to meds in the past, and I thought my body was to fragile to deal with them.

As far as antibiotics go, I think they should be used much more sparingly than they are and there should be more education as far as how to replenish your digestive tract after taking a course.

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The biggest problem with GAPS is that it is so restrictive for so long you can run into even more health problems. I've been on the Weston Price diet for the past couple years for some pretty serious autoimmune problems and I've seen dramatic improvements in my energy levels and the way I feel. I rejected conventional medications because I've had really bad reactions to meds in the past, and I thought my body was to fragile to deal with them.

As far as antibiotics go, I think they should be used much more sparingly than they are and there should be more education as far as how to replenish your digestive tract after taking a course.

I do have to ask how much you were watching what you ate before you went on the Weston A Price diet?

ETA- are you aware that it's based on a false premise? The people he studied were not healthier and actually lived shorter lives than the people in the US at that time. I think that there are good and bad things about the diet myself, but it's not the cure all that some make it out to be.

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Scarlet fever is strep throat. That's something you give antibiotics for, not something you futz around with.

Sure, there's such a thing as overreliance on antibiotics. As a general matter of principle, I try to use them sparingly as well, same as any medication. But if you have a disease that actually is helped by antibiotics (so, not colds) AND that generally doesn't clear up on its own (so, not ear infections in general, though of course any individual may be more prone to lasting ear infections than the general population) AND ESPECIALLY that can become quite serious and kill you (that definitely includes strep) - for fuck's sake, get over yourself and get treated.

And if you won't, at least obey quarantine guidelines.

On the subject of strep, last year my niece went through it and didn't show any symptoms until the very end. Very, very strange. She wakes up one day with a rash, we take her in, and the doctor says "It looks like she's just finishing up a case of strep." I came down with it two days later, boy was that fun. Had we known she was sick, of course, we would've gotten her treated earlier than the *very end* of the disease. Calling our strep-prone friends to tell them to watch out for their kids wasn't that fun.

This. I remember that one of my classmates in elementary school had scarlet fever, and we were given a letter to take home so our parents could be aware of any symptoms. Fortunately, nobody else that I know of caught that infection, so it was an isolated incident. While I do use antibiotics sparingly, especially since I'm allergic to penicillin, if I'm getting any symptoms of any bacterial infection, I go to the doctor. Once, I had bronchitis after a cold, but I decided to wait before going to the doctor, which was actually the right thing to do since it was actually viral, as it went away on its own. There was one time after a routine physical when the lab caught a UTI before symptoms showed up, as they did a culture from the urine sample. I'm relieved it was caught before symptoms showed, since it was right before Christmas, and it would have sucked to spend part of a holiday in the walk-in clinic. It must have been a nasty strain since I was basically given Cipro.

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Don't they normally culture for strep though? I remember getting (and hating) the throat swab as a kid, being sent home, then only if it came out positive did we go back to get the druuuuugs.

Scarlet fever is a systemic infection caused by the same bacteria that causes strep. Strep throat is an isolated infection. Scarlet fever involves the entire body. They needed to conform that it was systemic before they could prescribe the heavy duty doses of antibiotics.

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Sometimes rest and vitamins don't fix the problem. A few years ago I had the sinus infection from hell. I had it for 3 weeks before giving up and getting anti-biotics. I did everything from rest to working out to "sweat it out." I only wish I hadn't put it off taking abx...I could have been feeling better a lot sooner.

Riffles

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I do have to ask how much you were watching what you ate before you went on the Weston A Price diet?

The alterations that I made were actually pretty minimal. I've been pretty conscious of what I eat since I was a teenager. I was eating mostly organic, lots of fruits and vegetables, but a lot more grains than I am now. I'm pretty low carb right now - I haven't had pasta in about two and a half years. The two biggest things are 1) I cut out all processed sugars and 2) I started cooking with lard/butter instead of olive oil. The rest was just changing the ratios of what I was eating. My diet now has a lot more meat and dairy and I eat organ meats pretty regularly. Also I make sure to eat seafood at least twice a week.

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The Weston A Price and GAPS diet folks say that pretty much all your problems are caused because you, or your mother, took antibiotics at some point in your lives and/or breastfed or didn't breastfeed you. So you have to overdose on probiotics to "heal your gut."

Aha! Thank you for explaining my nice but crazy neighbor to me! It's really sad to see how many major food groups she's cut out of her family's diet in the name of good health. They literally eat no carbohydrates but fruit and honey (and both of these rarely), and I often wonder whether they walk around in a state of perpetual hypoglycemia.

I try to keep my mouth shut—my neighbor doesn't do the same for me, BTW, no doubt in the name of keeping the ignorant public informed—but I nearly went off the rails when she started lecturing me about how if you take antibiotics "even ONCE" you can ruin your gut for the rest of your life. Yes, antibiotics can be overprescribed, but no, there's no grand medical conspiracy to ruin your gut.

I don't really see that these issues are "mommy wars." Goodness knows there are plenty of diet nuts in the child-free and male parts of the population, too.

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Aha! Thank you for explaining my nice but crazy neighbor to me! It's really sad to see how many major food groups she's cut out of her family's diet in the name of good health. They literally eat no carbohydrates but fruit and honey (and both of these rarely), and I often wonder whether they walk around in a state of perpetual hypoglycemia.

I try to keep my mouth shut—my neighbor doesn't do the same for me, BTW, no doubt in the name of keeping the ignorant public informed—but I nearly went off the rails when she started lecturing me about how if you take antibiotics "even ONCE" you can ruin your gut for the rest of your life. Yes, antibiotics can be overprescribed, but no, there's no grand medical conspiracy to ruin your gut.

I don't really see that these issues are "mommy wars." Goodness knows there are plenty of diet nuts in the child-free and male parts of the population, too.

The Price diet is a bit more controversial because it advocates the use of animal fats, and contradicts current dietary science.

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As far as false premise thing goes, since it's worked for me I'm not going to go back to eating the way I was before. I had really high levels of inflammation, so I mostly needed to get my omega 3 and vitamin d levels up. I just happened to accomplish this on the Weston Price diet.

In any case, the Seven Countries Study, which established the lipid hypothesis (that saturated fat causes heart disease) was based on cherry picked evidence. That in turn lead to theories about nutrition that are still accepted today - and which influenced my pre-WAPF diet. My point is that we can never definitively know something, especially something as complex as nutrition, so the best way of dealing with it is experimenting and seeing what works for yourself. For me, it's Weston Price, but for someone else, it might be low saturated fats and high carbs.

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While I'm not anti-antibiotics, I did leave a GP basically over his inability to read a Western Blot. Result? Prophylactic doxycycline. I already have a sensitive stomach when it comes to antibiotics and avoid them as much as possible, so being told that I'd never actually needed to put myself through that week of hell -- could only stand one week; when I didn't feel pukey, I was stoned from the anti-emetic and the benzodiazepine -- that was kind of the last straw. Don't give out doxy like candy because that shit is noxious. I ended up with thrush AND the usual yeast infection. I don't mess around when I have got a reason to take them, but that was crap right there. Why else am I paying him, if not to correctly interpret my fucking bloodwork?

They're not kind to me, antibiotics, but when they're necessary, they're necessary. Just... keep it to necessary and pass the yogurt, please.

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Even Weston A Price would have fought against the Weston A Price Foundation of today. Info here on the disconnect between man and namesake: http://www.vegsource.com/news/2009/11/r ... ation.html

They pass off blatant lies as dentistry http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRel ... cdent.html

They cannot produce superior outcomes, which ultimately is the scientific proof that their diet works. Lots of anecdata, no double-blind studies. And even their own founder would have denounced what they have become.

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Even Weston A Price would have fought against the Weston A Price Foundation of today. Info here on the disconnect between man and namesake: http://www.vegsource.com/news/2009/11/r ... ation.html

They pass off blatant lies as dentistry http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRel ... cdent.html

They cannot produce superior outcomes, which ultimately is the scientific proof that their diet works. Lots of anecdata, no double-blind studies. And even their own founder would have denounced what they have become.

I would guess for someone like me the diet would result in a stroke or at least a heart attack within a few years on the outside.

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What lack of a solid science foundation will do for you. :shock:

What makes matters worse is that after we stop taking antibiotics, the bad bacteria replace themselves very quickly and in doing so can often make us crave sugar which is their main source of food. The bad bacteria uses the sugar to grow and multiply and the cycle compounds on itself.

After having stated that good bacteria must be reintroduced to one's system, the author says that bad bacteria grow automatically? :doh:

The "bad bacteria" of that claim is actually yeast, and it's not bacteria. And yes, people do often get thrush and yeast infections after a course of antibacterial meds, but that can be dealt with too.

Without enough good bacteria our immune system becomes unable to fight off infectious bacteria on its own and we become dependent on antibiotics.

Clearly, our human cells have nothing to do with our immune system. :roll:

Unlike bad bacteria, the friendly bacteria we vitally need for good health aren’t aggressive at penetrating our systems.

Thankfully, most of us still have our appendixes and aren't hermits. Unless we're chickens and fed antibiotics regularly, the bacteria will replenish. The concern is not being empty of bacteria, but rather disrupting the yeast/bacteria balance in our bodies.

And there is a huge difference between not using antibacterial medication for the flu versus for strep. Besides the obvious risk of permanent heart damage, unless the person is undergoing a course of antibacterial medication, she or he will be very contagious for quite some time. Regarding the long term problem of the use of antibacterial medication, treating fewer people sooner is the better option.

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Oh man, yeast. I once went on this wacky anti-candida diet to support a friend.

Neither of us get thrush (tmi, sorry), but she was convinced her system was overgrown with candida because she was always tired. Turned out the problem was untreated sleep apnoea, not bloody candida.

It's interesting to see people take good ideas to extremes. Vegan diet healthy? Then let's live on vegetable and fruit juice to be super healthy! Antibiotics as prophylactics not such a great idea? A jihad on all antibiotics! Whole foods better for you than fast food and chocolate bars that are mostly low grade oil and a dusting of cocoa? Organ meat, lots of organ meat fried in butter.

I'm reminded of the scene in 'The Birdcage' when Albert (in full, conservative drag) starts in on abortions. Something like, you may as well kill the women since the fetuses are going to die anyway. They can just go down with the ship. Val jumps in and suggests that his mother was following his train of thought to a logical, if utterly ridiculous conclusion. I suppose if the only knowledge of medicine and healthy eating you have comes from alternative propaganda, then getting rid of antibiotics for a bloody case of strep, or chowing down on enough saturated fat to fell a tiger is very sensible.

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Don't they normally culture for strep though? I remember getting (and hating) the throat swab as a kid, being sent home, then only if it came out positive did we go back to get the druuuuugs.

Rapid strep tests are standard now, so doctors can often confirm strep and write a prescription while your in the office. Rapid tests are not perfect though, and can produce a lot of false negatives. The last time I had strep (10 years ago) the rapid test was negative, but the visual exam was pretty convincing, so the doctor did a culture and went ahead and wrote the prescription for antibiotics. The culture came back positive.

I'm all for conservative use of antibiotics, but do not mess around with strep. I had scarlet fever when I was a kid (in 1989), and I was sick enough that neighbors and friends from church were sending get well cards. I was pretty young, but remember enough of it to know I never want to be that sick again, and that was with timely and appropriate medical care.

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Thank you EmmieDahl and Anise!

Every decision we make in life is a risk/benefit analysis. In the case of antibiotics, the question to be answered is: Which is worse, the disease or the cure?

I have been preacticing medicine fo over 27 years and there was a time that patients would be very angry when I told them that antibiotics were not necessary. It is hard to understand that you paid good money for insurance/dotor visit and then get told that the only treatment is taking good care of yourself and watchful waiting. Today, patients are much more informed. I LOVE infomed patients who are willing to be equal partners in health care. I do prescribe antibiotics when thaey are needed. I am happy to report that a young woman with a sore throat was perfectly happy to forego antibiotics when her strep test was negative and an older woman was agreeable that her clear runny nose, scratchy throat and achiness would pass on their own.

Now If I could only convice y'all that you cannot get theflu from the flu shot! The virus is DEAD.

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This anti-antibiotic movement makes my blood boil. If strep throat is left untreated it can turn into Rheumatic fever where the child will most likely be weak and sickly for the rest of its life. The worst case is obviously death.

Are people really this stupid?! Really?!!!!

It makes me even more angry because I'm allergic to amoxicillin (and other 'cillins), which is the most effective antibiotic for strep, I believe. When people don't complete their antibiotics (especially the ones I can take like z-pack), it contributes to resistant bacteria. In turn, people like me are stuck without an effective antibiotic.

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Now If I could only convice y'all that you cannot get theflu from the flu shot! The virus is DEAD.

OK, I know that, I believe you, and I get my flu shot every year that it's available to low-risk members of the population (that is, whenever there's not a shortage). Now can anyone answer my dumb question: Why do the nurses who give me my flu shot always warn me that I may have a headache or other mild cold-like symptoms after getting the shot, and why do a couple of my family members actually get those symptoms every time they get their shots? What causes the symptoms, since it's not the flu virus?

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OK, I know that, I believe you, and I get my flu shot every year that it's available to low-risk members of the population (that is, whenever there's not a shortage). Now can anyone answer my dumb question: Why do the nurses who give me my flu shot always warn me that I may have a headache or other mild cold-like symptoms after getting the shot, and why do a couple of my family members actually get those symptoms every time they get their shots? What causes the symptoms, since it's not the flu virus?

I can answer this. Immunizations stimulate your immune system to respond. Part of the reason people feel sick from a contagion is from out own immune response. What makes people feel a little bit "off" is that we can feel a mild form of this. What I tell patients is that they will get the sensation that they may be "coming down with something", but they never actually get sick. It is their immune systen reacting that they feel.

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Sometimes rest and vitamins don't fix the problem. A few years ago I had the sinus infection from hell. I had it for 3 weeks before giving up and getting anti-biotics. I did everything from rest to working out to "sweat it out." I only wish I hadn't put it off taking abx...I could have been feeling better a lot sooner.

Riffles

This was me a few weeks ago. My little, daycare going, petri dish of a child gave me a cold which turned into a sinus infection from hell. I tried holding off, doing the neti-pot, humidifier, etc. I finally broke down one morning and stopped by urgent care on my way to work. I wished I had done it a lot sooner. It would have saved me three weeks of suffering.

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OK, I know that, I believe you, and I get my flu shot every year that it's available to low-risk members of the population (that is, whenever there's not a shortage). Now can anyone answer my dumb question: Why do the nurses who give me my flu shot always warn me that I may have a headache or other mild cold-like symptoms after getting the shot, and why do a couple of my family members actually get those symptoms every time they get their shots? What causes the symptoms, since it's not the flu virus?

I think it is because of the immune reaction. A lot of flu symptoms are caused by your own body's reaction and not the virus itself.

I get sick, really sick, from the flu shot. I used to not get it because I figured why? Either get sick when I get the shot, or later in the year from the flu itself. I never got more than one killer flu in a year. And then I took science classes. Seriously, my youngest child is sickly, we have elderly relatives and I have a nephew with severe asthma and reactive airway disease. They don't need the older kids and I walking around like Typhoid Marys spreading diseases that could be dangerous to them. While we still get sick occasionally, we do not have as many of those full-house-quarantine illness hell weeks.

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OK, I know that, I believe you, and I get my flu shot every year that it's available to low-risk members of the population (that is, whenever there's not a shortage). Now can anyone answer my dumb question: Why do the nurses who give me my flu shot always warn me that I may have a headache or other mild cold-like symptoms after getting the shot, and why do a couple of my family members actually get those symptoms every time they get their shots? What causes the symptoms, since it's not the flu virus?

I think I can answer this. The reason you may get these symptoms is because your body is responding to the shot in a similar, yet more mild, way it would respond to the live virus. You are not going to get the flu, per se, but you may get a small immune response to the vaccine.

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