So I have been switching back and forth since I was 12 years old on Minocycline, Tetracycline and Amoxicillin. Over the last year or so I have stopped them for the most part (I'm 22) and now illnesses seem to assail me without rest. They all seem to be ailments that antibiotics might be prescribed for. I have never been so frequently sick, nor have I ever had any infections up until now and I can't help but think going off my Amoxicillin may be the cause. I may be listening to too much late night AM radio, but it's a theory. Anyone care to run with this?

Let me expound ever so slightly, I recall this guy talking about massive epidemics coming through and people being weaker immune wise because of years of antibiotics. If this is the case, I will tough it out as I'm a bit of a Doomsday believer. If not my skin could be a little bit nicer, and 10 bucks a month isn't that bad.

at the very least olive leaf extract may be something good to take.

I have some ideas to improve my overall health, reduce stress and all that shit, but the shit I've been dealing with every month is getting nuts. I've been sick 4 times this year already.

Erm. Why do you take so much antibiotics?

Welcome to the club. I was on penicillin from age 3 to 13 and was sick constantly. May I suggest;

1. Flora. Some really high potency stuff at least for a month or three. That may be all you need, but you might want to consider taking some lesser potency stuff after that for awhile.

One good really high potency stuff is this:

http://www.iherb.com/ProductDetails.aspx?c=1&pid=7157

DO NOT TAKE ANY MORE ANTIBIOTICS UNLESS YOU REALLY NEED THEM.

2. Vitamin C e.g. calcium and/or magnesium ascorbate. Find out what bowel tolerance is (see prior threads) and take a bit under that in divided doses throughout the day.

3. Some good multi vitamin (not centrum).

That should be a good start.

Oh ya, if you don't get fiber from food, get some flax seeds. start them slowly after you're taking the flora for a few days and work up to 1-2 tbsp/day.

And you might feel bad or really bad for a few days as the flora fights it out with whatever is living in your gut.

Skin. I trusted my Pops wouldn't do me wrong, but before you know it you've spent half your life on meds...



I use your Vit C dosing like crazy already, it's come in handy over and over. I need to start using a Multi again. And I have been considering a Flora product for a while now, I think I have an ulcer lol. That coupled with random infections, its just odd.

Scott were you sick during the time you were on meds or after cessation? I'm wondering if my system grew weak the way a super clean house makes children more likely to get allergies. I know I had issues with my Wisdom teeth for a long time, then I went off my meds, and all the sudden my face blew up like crazy. After a day of Amoxicillin I was pretty much A OK

Why in the world would you take antibiotics that much, if your suffering from that many infections then some serious immunodeficiency is at play.

Yeah I've been meaning to do this as well, being broke sucks like crazy. Not once in the last 4 years have I eaten so poorly or been so stressed. For a week or two there I had horrible stomach problems and a slightly sore throat, kinda leading me to think ulcer or sumthin' similar. Who knows at this point, my 22 year old body can't handle this 40 year old stress much longer

I'm assuming your taking antibiotics for acne. Same as me, I've been taking doxcycline for bout 3 months. I saw a decent improvement the first two months and now I am back to the occasional breakouts. Doxy, more or less, eliminated my inflamed acne but I can still tell my pores get clogged. I also been concurrently using retin-a thinking that they would be complementary and help keep more pores clear. Due to the initial success of the antibiotics I was hoping I would be able to use them long term, as the side effects seemed rather mild. I wish I had a better understanding of how antibiotics work, as in the state of a person immune system seems to have a rather complex series of interactions. So the disruption to the immune system has me concerned.

Have you been using different antibiotics due to diminishing effects of one? As in you start a new one as soon as the old stops working? Do these acne causing bacteria eventually become immune to the antibiotics? Have you periodically stopped antibiotics since you were 12 and noticed anything? I'll ask my dermatologist but he charges at least ~$30 bucks for a visit.

I found Amoxicillin the most effective, and I had been on that for the last few years. I liked it combined with 40mg once weekly of Accutane. I don't think they ever did a lot, but the stage of my acne the last year or so is just mild enough for antibiotics to work. When I was a kid though they may have well of done nothing.

Knew I shoulda asked.

http://www.mindandmuscle.net/articles/scot...elieving_stress

So perhaps the antibiotics are a lesser role than you thought (though some flora would probably still be a good idea).

Proactive solution? The ads and celebrity backing are great...it must work.

no doubt your system is weak, your adaptive immune system has literally no training as any bugs have no chance to get established(obviously of a bacterial nature). Your immune system needs training to learn how to work and increases its functioniality and memory storage (antibodies etc). Without proper training a malfunction is more likely then not i would argue, look at mast cells and clean envioronments or eosinophils etc.

I've read it, and was practicing it for a while. I might need to get back on it

It seems you are getting at what I was trying to get at. Am I weak from years of antibiotics? I'm afraid of plagues but it's soooo tempting to get back on them

Yes your immune system is immature i from a memory standpoint, getting sick is actually a good thing in terms of immunocompetence, although im not sure how much real training is going on now that your thymus has regressed and been on anti biotics for such a long time.

the probiotics is a good idea, time it probably going to be the only real solution to the problem.

just to add as an edit your MALT is certainly compromised specifically GALT, along with peyers patches and m cell function along with some dysbiosis. Calfs feed antiiotics showed all kinds of fucked up immune function like improper IGA switching, smaller peyers patches, immature GALT which lead to higher incidence of infection.

i dont think taking more antibiotics is going to be of much help other then make you worse in the long run, id stay away from herbal anti microbials like oregano also and let your immune system work a bit, save actual bacterial infections.

Well I suppose I got the jist of all that, I'll give it a whirl in the future. I never liked the idea of being on meds so long, turns out I was right. Even if your Pops is a pretty good PA, he's still just a PA.

O and I just got fired tonight. Wonderful. My God it just never stops

some may consider it a blessing getting fired from a job that i assume is the cause of your stress?

at any rate good luck with a new one.

as for supps, a whole food multi, good quality probiotic (i use the now one cheap and effective) and add garlic to your food for a few weeks.

and when you say you get sick? what kind of sickness throat ear infections?
if that is the case i will wholeheartedly recommend some 3% hydrogen peroxide solution when you start feeling sick. gargle a few times with it and put a few drops in your ears for a few minutes at a time. if your infection is bacterial in nature this will cure it 95% of the time without antibiotics

last thoguht, did you stop cold turkey or did you try to taper down your AB's?

hope you feel better

Try Retin-A cream or Benzaclin instead of the pills.

No. Fuck everything and listen up. The CURE for acne is:
Ovace Fash Wash (its a soap)
w/
Differin face cream

That shit is THE silver bullet for acne. Ive used it for YEARS and havent ever had a pimple. (Seriously.)

Woah... that's alot of drama. You really do live in OC.

I don't know why you stayed on antibiotics for so long, as there are far better solutions to acne. Such as: topical antibiotics/corticosteroids/benzoil/retinol. The combination of atleast two of those drugs in a topical cream is sufficient and none of them require a prescription.

I don't like bashing a compound without hard evidence, but minocycline was the only drug I've ever taken that made me talk about very vulgar subjects/jokes constantly. I don't know if it crosses the BBB or has an indirect effect, but I did lose a lot of respect from some good friends. I never would have guessed what was going on was drug induced as I felt perfectly normal. When my friends finally asked if I was on drugs, as the jokes became more vulgar, I wouldn't have made the connection. I tested the drug 6mo. after and got the same effect.

just something to think about.

D, its likely the stress rather than years on antibiotics that is getting you at the moment...you put your body through a lot chemically and it sounds like you have a lot of life stress as well. That said, the time on tetracycline probably has not done you a lot of long term good either...messed with your internal flora as Scott has suggested and tilted the bacteria-fungus balance that we all exist with.

I'd suggest B-5 high dose for the acne. Its very cheap and essentially non-toxic.

Cue Cam'ron song "Got sumpin for ya face, fuck Pro-active

Haha j/k. Seriously, the proactive combo works well, just buy your own ingredients seperatly. Also, a little cetaphil/triclosan mixed with your shave cream helps prevent shaving induced acne. And when I switched to Aveeno ultra-calming shave gel it helped tremendously.

I'm fairly certain that most antibiotics are contraindicated with isotretinoin, as the combination can greatly increase the likelihood of idiopathic intracranial hypertension (something you probably don't want). Not sure if this is a risk with once weekly dosing of 40mg or so.

Differin worked great for me as well, until I moved to Arizona. In this desert, Differin makes my skin peel like crazy, which may be on the same level as bad acne when it comes to being unattractive.

CoQ10, vitamin E, niacin, and copious amounts of Carlson's brand fish oil have my skin looking more healthy than ever these days. I also use Cetaphil brand soap (the bars, with triclosan) and Neutrogena face wash with triclosan. No salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide.

I obsess over the appearance of my skin far more than anyone I know, male or female.

Very metrosexual of you...

Cordain and others have done some work with regard to diet and acne:

http://www.thepaleodiet.com/articles/Corda...y%20Reviews.pdf

I used a high GI-diet during puberty, so there is clearly a confounding variable. Diary never seemed to cause any trouble.

If I were you I'd be overdosing on probiotics and running some sort of Candida yeast cleanse. I'd cut out most starches too.

itsnt that counterproductive?

running anti-microbials while adminstering microbials, doesnt sound like a good strategy to me.

I listened to my Doc, and even asked if it was cool that I was on AB for so long...I mean you only have so much medical knowledge as a kid... So far as mood swings and shit, I'd have no idea, I'm fairly even tempered.

Oh, and I went and got my job back. The place I work for is tempered by fist fights between the owners, it's definitely an odd place. I like it though for what its worth.





The acne is gone, that's why I stopped the AB's. I have had a feeling for some time that my flora might be off, because previously I had a gut like a damn tank. The stress thing is weird, I've been through 6 months of jail, that shit was no cake walk. I got sick for like two days in there while everyone else was put through the wringer. I'd say I handle stress well, however the amount I'm under now is certainly something new. Who knows, adult life is kinda new to me, it's simply one thing after another and it never really goes away. I guess thats life though.

Oh, I have never had this before, but yesterday after a big Denny's breakfast with my boss my ass exploded. It was simply vulgar and almost debilitating and spastic. I've never run for the pot so fast in my life. Prevacid perhaps?

I've noticed a recurring pattern where people whose gut health is compromised can no longer tolerate sh!tty, unhealthy foods. In some cases I think it might be a blessing in disguise, like your body is giving you loud & clear feedback on what it thinks of the quality food you are putting into it.

a bulking agent like fiber would do you better in prevention of mudbutt, extra calcium as well.

Junk foods have been 90 percent of my diet for the past few months, I'm broke and I dont like it. 5 years of healthy eating to being injured and eating like shit has destroyed my stomach. I prefer simply not eating now.

And that mud butt was out of this world, like Alien 2 type shit

Any lack of immunological memory would have been taken care of for common pathogens by now(a year after stopping the antibiotics). The same goes for a loss of flora due to them. If any of this is even related, he should be looking into immunodeficiency disorders or some other source of immunosupression.

well since he is no longer a kid and his immune system is adult like as there is important immunological changes occuring i doubt a year would cure any of the issues you related above. dysbiosis is not self correcting, espeicially on a scale like this, constant anti biotics. A lifetime of sickness and early youth endotoxin infections is needed to build a proper immune system, obviously his immune system is fucked from year of antibiotics.

memory is a cummulative process.

The immune system already contains an inherent ability to combat pretty much any pathogen a person will encounter. A lack of or a weak memory response will easily be corrected within a year, barring he has no immunodeficiency disorders, for common pathogens. Keep in mind that years of antibiotics wouldn't have wiped out the entire flora population or he would have likely been very sick that entire time or have died. That means exposure to these organisms still took place.

This may be a case of dysbiosis but that's not indicative of an immunological memory issue. Keep in mind that flora populations are mostly kept in check by each other.

i doubt a weak memory response would be corrected in a year because its not the response that is the issue but the catalogue of antibodies, you are correct that the ab repertoire is created earlier via multiple germline genees,combinatorial diversity, junctional diversity, and H/l chain combos. However, somatic mutations ie various pathogens one would encouter are not stored, and b cells not receiving stimulation from follicules will degenerate. Im just saying that by not having any illness (an assumption) due to antibitotics are renedered anergic for a period where immunocompetence could of been gained. He hasnt encountered any pathogens is what im saying, now without the antibiotics he is encountering foreign bacteria along with general immunosuppression from years of antibiotic usage

i also didnt say dysbiosis was indicative of a b cell issue, i would bet money he has fucked up flora and will need aggressive treatment to correct it imo. He says he is under alot of stress, probably was before, eats like shit and just came off years of antibiotics his flora is certainly not in the best shape. dysbiosis can cause all sorts of immune issues.

No offense to anyone but this is so thread is SO typical of this site;

--Person with mentional emotional stuff posts descriptions of the physical manifestations of their problems.

--Discussion of remedies

--discussion of the pathophysiology at some very advanced level.

This is why I wrote articles on stress reduction and related topics. Even if the advanced level descriptions of the pathophysiology behind these phenomena in all these threads are correct (and I have doubts about many of them), they are something less then optimally useful since they are adressing a secondary or tertiary effect, not the problem. Not that the problems are easily adressible, they are not, but adressing various mediators, cytokines, etc etc, ain't gonna fix the problem either, cept as a band aid.

so what is the etiology then?

i suggested probiotics and gave some evidence on why only time will help as his immune system learns to function properly without exogenous help in the form of potent anti-biotics.

adaptegens would be of good use along with probiotics, high dose vitamin c, high amounts of zinc along with stress reduction in the form of meditation. This is the basic advice given out over and over and over and over again. He is trying to figure out what is wrong, its obvious his immune system is compromised, what do you think is the best possible solution?

i had something similar to this as i was on vacation and eating shitty food, at the end of the trip i barely made it to the washroom, i thought something was wrong it was so explosive.

almost as bad as the time i ate close to 50 prunes and 300mgs of mag citrate.

The basic etiology is the stress, without which the damage from antibiotics would be much less. Don't misunderstand, you're advice is similar to mine and basically sound.

Basic advice for almost all gut issues is:

STRESS REDUCTION. Some flora. Some could use digestive enymes, some glutamine (food for gut lining), some fiber (flax seeds is one kind of flora well tolerated not all fiber is). Everyone could use some vitamin C and a good multi. Anti-yeast stuff may/will be needed by some but not first thing.

If heal deals with the stress and takes some flora all will likely fix itself (well and stop eating shite).

The immumology info is interesting, and you know more about it than I, though I'm not sure how much is necessary to heal him.

ANyway certainly nothing personal, I've just seen zillions of threads turn into academic discussions of molecular minutia. My mini rant was not directed at you.

no offense taken at all.

That's a good point, I've actually seen studies describe depression / stress CAUSING changes in gut flora composition, killing off various lactobacillus and bifidobacterium species.

Agree that stress plays a role. Post-prison mild PTSD seems likely to be causing turmoil at an unconscious level.
Psych effects are one thing, but the antibiotic history is really important. The "superbug" c. difficile give a lesson on how necessary a flora balance is, and how difficult it can be to restore a balance.

After antibiotics, naturally-present c. difficile takes over in some people. There ensues years of Life lived while sitting on the toilet. Untreated, many often never get over it. One cure is a fecal transplant. Take the poo of a healthy relative and inject it into your guts. Problem solved
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/11/13/fecal-transplant.html

Another study showed that garden dirt contains organisms beneficial to the gut flora. Just beware of roundworm. Go out and do some bare-hand gardening.
Eat dirt and avoid atopic whatevers
Hope for the hygiene hypothesis: when the dirt hits the fan.
CDC, dirt and emerging infectious diseases
-- iin the CDC study above, skip the first few sections. One notable quotation "... animals have been successfully raised in absolutely sterile environments. Rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, and rats have been raised under such conditions (30,31). In each case, the immune system failed to develop normally. Lymph nodes and GALT did not achieve the right shape or composition and could not initiate normal immune response. Reexposure to infection later in life does not work, at least not fully. "

I am not a doctor, and my advice is worth every penny you paid for it (cash only please). Personally, I would prescribe kissing be added to the list of potential cures. Lots of friendly bacteria exchanged. However, this treatment may have to be administered t.i.d. for several minutes or hours at a time with music and candles. Continue this regimen over many weeks or months. Welcome any opportunity to attach to a new pair of lips as they may bring new species of beneficial micro-orgasms. <--Correction: "micro-organisms". I meant "organisms", really I did.
Enjoy.

Perhaps I'll have my girl read this thread, go eat some dirt, then try to spend hours playing tonsil hockey. I like this regimen

Anyhow, I'm going to try adding some flax and go from there. If that doesn't work, I'll get me some Probiotics. I yes, I need to step up my efforts at meditation. Sucks to think all this stress, which really I thought I handled well, is possibly the root of all this. And no, I don't have PTSD from jail, I actually draw a lot of strength from that experience.