Antibiotics: A Blessing And A Curse
Antibiotics are a critically important medicine. For most of human history, bacterial infections were a leading cause of death. The discovery of antibacterial medicine was one of the greatest advances in modern medicine.
Unfortunately, the cure can also be the cause of a lot of other health issues.
Since we are filled with trillions of beneficial bacteria, when we take even one round of antibiotics, it can wreak havoc on our own internal ecosystem which can lead to a whole host of other issues. (See the research HERE.) The microbiome is responsible not only for helping our digestion, but it has an impact on our mental health, our immune health, and even our hormonal health. Having a balanced microbiome is critical for our longevity, so we want to weigh seriously anything that might disrupt it.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one-third of antibiotic use in people is not needed nor appropriate.
More and more doctors are prescribing them less frequently, but it’s a good idea to do your due diligence and ask questions to make sure they’re the best course for you.
But what do you do when they ARE necessary?
This was me last week. I started having signs of a UTI on Friday. I did all my natural remedies and felt much better by the end of the day, but then I woke up at 3:00 am with terrible pain. I could tell that antibiotics were going to be necessary this time, so I headed to Urgent Care as soon as they were open to get diagnosed and get my prescription.
This is an area of weakness for me, though the last couple years I’ve been able to avoid antibiotics. Even though I know this will set me back a little in my gut healing journey, it’s not doing irreparable damage, whereas the infection could have done long term damage if left untreated.
Here is exactly what I’m doing to not only minimize the damage while I’m on antibiotics, but also what I’m doing once my prescription is finished to make sure my gut is able to fully recover:
During Antibiotics
Even though the antibiotics are killing off beneficial bacteria in your gut, you can still minimize the damage by doing these things:
Focus on lifestyle habits that promote a healthy microbiome. This doesn’t stop just because you’re on antibiotics, in fact, knowing that the medication is killing off beneficial bacteria, you want to do all you can to create an internal environment that will protect the bacteria left. All of these things are great to do as you’re also healing from whatever infection required antibiotics in the first place! Here are a few things to focus on:
Get quality sleep (aim for 7-9 hours a night, our microbiome is damaged when we aren’t getting enough quality sleep)
Get out into nature (Nature helps to diversify our microbiome and calms your nervous system)
Manage your stress with deep breathing, journaling, lightening your work load, and making time for replenishing activities (stress depletes the microbiota!)
Avoid sugars (sugars will feed the opportunistic fungus like candida that can take over with a round of antibiotics)
Avoid alcohol (alcohol has been shown to damage the microbiome)
Eat fiber rich foods (keeping your gut moving is important, and fiber is a preferred food for your microbiome)
Eat a diet high in polyphenols (ex: berries, colorful veggies, olives, walnuts, flaxseeds, and green tea are high in polyphenols, which are another preferred food source for your beneficial bacteria, you want to nourish whatever isn’t being damaged)
Eat fermented foods to replenish your microbiome (space these out at least 4-6 hours away from your antibiotic)
Move your body: go for daily walks. Don’t overdo it while your body is healing from infection, but movement is so important for the health of the entire body.
Take A Quality Probiotic. Some will say that there’s no point to doing this while you’re on the antibiotic because the medication will only kill the good bacteria you’re putting in.
That’s true to a point, and this is why you don’t want to take a probiotic at the same time as your meds, but those few hours can still have a positive impact of replenishing your microbiome and supporting what is still there. Just space it out so you’re taking the probiotic at least 4-6 hours away from the antibiotic.
You want a well rounded probiotic for this, here are two of my favorites, either would be great options:
After Antibiotics
Once your course of antibiotics have finished, its so important to do what you can to reestablish a healthy and diverse gut flora. You want to continue with all of the same lifestyle habits mentioned above, with emphasis on diet to create an environment that will feed your beneficial bacteria and allow them to grow.
If you haven’t read my blog post on everything you want to do, and avoid, for a healthy microbiome, you can read that HERE.
But after antibiotics I want to give my gut some extra love to allow it to fully heal. Here are some supplements that I’ll be taking as soon as I’m finished:
Healthy Gut Support + Probiotic This duo is designed to use after you finish the Candida and Bacterial Overgrowth protocol, but it’s also perfect to use after you finish a round of antibiotics. These supplements are designed to help your gut repopulate beneficial bacteria and seal the tight junctions in the gut wall, while soothing occasional discomfort (diarrhea or pain is common after taking antibiotics).
It’s the perfect duo for speeding up your recovery and allowing the gut to heal from any damage the antibiotics caused. I’ll follow this protocol for at least a month. The Healthy Gut Support is a powder so it’ll be easy to add to my morning smoothie.
GBX Immunity This flavorless powder is a powerhouse of functional mushrooms designed to balance and prime the microbiome for immune support. It supports a healthy gut wall by optimizing gut barrier function as well as signaling. It helps the gut-brain axis to do it’s job! This is a supplement I take daily anyway, but it’s an important one to continue post-antibiotics.
Happy Juice Stress is one of the biggest contributors to gut dysbiosis. First, because when you are in survival mode, your nervous system intentionally disrupts your gut motility so you can be ready at any moment to fight or flee. Our gut can handle that short term, but when we’re perpetually stuck in that state, it causes long term damage. I did a deeper dive on all the damage it can do HERE.
I take Happy Juice everyday, not only because of how it helps me to regulate my nervous system response and increases my stress resilience, but it also contains powerful psychobiotics and prebiotics for a healthy gut microbiome. I attribute Happy Juice as to why I haven’t needed antibiotics for such a long time. I’ve battled with constant UTI infections for the last 20 years. A huge piece of my healing has been balancing out my gut and lowering my stress response and this supplement played a huge role in that. So it’s a critical piece for me since it doesn’t seem like a stress-less life is happening anytime soon. It’s perfect for keeping my gut happy post antibiotics.
*This is not medical advice. This is not a substitute for medical diagnosis, advice, or treatment. Consult with your primary care provider for personal recommendations.
Further Considerations
When we don’t feel good or get an infection, all we really want is relief, understandably so. Allopathic medicine can be wonderful for our immediate needs, but they often don’t question what caused the problem in the first place.
My UTI problems originally started because my microbiome was unbalanced. My microbiome was unbalanced because I had a very dysregulated nervous system.
I spent over a decade taking antibiotics regularly, at least 3-4 times a year due to UTI infections. That only caused further damage to my microbiome.
When I look back on all of that, it makes sense why I had so many gut problems. It makes sense why I was having continuous UTI’s (gut microbiota impacts vaginal microbiota too!) It made sense why I developed rosacea. It made sense why I started having hormonal issues and metabolic issues.
All of it was connected. It wasn’t until I addressed the true root cause, which was nervous system regulation, that everything began to balance out.
Even though my gut is healthier than it’s ever been, when I look back at the week before I got the infection, it makes sense to me that it happened. Higher than usual stress, bad diet, threw my neck out and was in pain, lack of movement, not enough water; there were multiple factors that set me up for a struggle, and when your body is weak, it tends to be your weakest area that will act up first.
I share this because it’s important to find the root causes. I might still be fighting continuous infections if I hadn’t done the work needed to regulate my nervous system.
If you’ve been fighting continuous health symptoms that don’t seem to want to get better, take a look at your gut, and take a look at your nervous system. Those are two great places to start in order to find healing. And the good news is that healing is absolutely possible!
