A Poem to Antibiotics.

Antibiotics:

Within hours you gave me back my breathing,
but inside my gut the bacteria is grieving.
A lesser of two evils,
that I do surely dread.
But if I cannot breathe,
all of me is dead.

What are your thoughts and experiences of common antibiotics?

I had to take ten days of augmentum for an inflamed cyst on my back. I have no problem with antibiotics other than some do dumb you down temporarily. When I finished, I ate eggs for breakfast and supper for a day and I was able to think straight again. Surprising what a little choline can accomplish.

They were over prescribing them before but they have stopped handing them out like candy now. I think it is the antibiotics and antimicrobial chemistry used on our food and to grow our food that is leading to antibacterial resistance. They are trying to say it is our fault for mutating the microbes. The FDA is trying to cover up it's mistakes. They think we are all dumb enough not to see through their tactics.

Another thing, they say they discovered horizontal transfer of antibiotic resistance between species of microbes now. They have always done that, the only thing new is that they discovered microbes do that.

Just because a bacteria is antibiotic resistant doesn't mean it is going to bite us. It only means if it starts to attack us, we cannot easily stop it anymore. The only kingdom I have is the microbes in and on me, I don't want to piss off my subjects. I do not know if I needed the antibiotic course I just had, but it is better safe than sorry. Some common skin bacteria can actually cause problems if you have a cut or wound, it is better to at least put some triple antibiotic on it after cleaning it or at least some iodine to keep these guys from infecting us. If there is an infection, then it is good to go see a doctor and get it checked out. I actually believe doctors are very important a lot of times, especially ones who will help you to do things without taking long term meds. I have no problem altering my diet to get away from needing meds, some people don't want to alter their diets to fix things, they may need meds.

Roses are Red.
Violets are Blue.
One day I'll be Dead.
And so will You.

Once had some really strong antibiotics fed into me by IV to fight an infection.
Been paying for it for 12 years now.

I think I was better off just letting the infection take its course even if it had meant death some days.
Case of I think the cure was actually worse than the disease.

Myth: Bacteria are actively gaining resistance to all antibiotics.

Some bacteria are gaining resistances to current federally approved antibiotics.

Technically you could go out your back door, take a random swab sample, and discover a brand new antibiotic enzyme, protein, or otherwise.

The federal approval process, cost of testing, and cost of market entry are the only boulders in the road. Those beuracratic systems are what is preventing anything like that from being fast tracked for public use.

Antibiotics exist in the wild, that can easily dispatch and destroy all known bacteria.

Big pharmaceutical companies and federal regulation won't help this process, so we are shooting ourselves in the foot, then whining that it hurts.

The majority of modern antibiotics, in use, came from a naturally derived source. Some fungi, some bacteria, or some organism was producing and excreting it, to kill bacteria.

In some cases this was defense, in others, a way to nullify resource competition from the other bacteria.

This is still happening. Wild micro organisms outnumber the work of pharmaceutical labs by billions and billions.

Looking at it that way, it is literally like there is a network of trillions of tiny labs, all trying to "develop" new antibiotics. We have regulations that limit the rate, we can personally do this on our own.
However, bacteria, fungi, etc... do not care about our regulations. They make new enzymes and proteins everyday that would kill our superbugs, full stop.

It's a shame, it will take a real threat of a worldwide pandemic, to remove those arbitrary layers of inhibition that our regulations provide.

Any scholar of the field can tell you that a reactionary measure for fighting the super bug epidemic, versus proactively researching new antibiotics as quickly as possible... Is going to eventually give us an outcome where millions WILL die, and we could have prevented it. The only factor right now, is that we can't really predict when or exactly how this will happen, but there is a certainty that it WILL eventually occur.

a reply to: rickymouse

Nice post Ricky! I always value your knowledge on things food and medicine related. I hadn't been following, but I hope that's true everywhere that antibiotics are not being handed out like candy anymore. I've known people who would get a little cough and get antibiotics from their doctor - which they would take for a couple of days (until their viral infection had run it's course), and it drove me insane!

I feel antibiotics are great to make you feel better when you are sick. The only side effect is that strong doses can make you feel extremely drowsy and lethargic. It is always better to focus on health & nutrition rather than popping antibiotics once you feel ill.