I help people recover from antibiotic side effects. I am a clinical naturopath (ANPA) and mental health professional I have special interest in this area. You may even get health fund rebates.
I myself was severely damaged by antibiotic side-effects that left me in terrible pain and very ill health for a year. When I addressed this with clinicians, I was treated as if I was making the whole thing up, but my life and my family’s life was devasted by what happened.
Some people sometimes have very bad reactions to antibiotics which can lead short term skin rashes, skin necrosis, swollen tongue, anaphylaxis, destruction for the gut’s microbiome, bacterial resistance, organ failure and at times death. This can run from 4.2% to 42% of patients depending on the antibiotic. (1)
Also, when patients tell a health practitioner they have had previous bad reactions to antibiotics, practitioners can often ignore what they are saying.
Poor training in antibiotics
The problem that occurs is that doctors and health practitioners don’t warn patients of these possible side effects that can occur in advance. Legally they are supposed to inform patients, but they do not. In a study only 31% to 26% of junior doctors knew the correct prevalences of antibiotic misuse. (2)
Also, when patients tell a health practitioner they have had previous bad reaction to antibiotics, practitioners can ignore what they are saying. Proper notes are not put in the file and the reaction in not reported to the government drugs regulatory body.
Medical schools don’t teach health professionals the seriousness of constantly checking for contraindications to medications before they are prescribed. There is a cursory reference in medical text, but most health professionals ignore it.
Practitioners also don’t spend enough time with patients to take a full history. If you are not looking at the whole of the patient’s circumstances, most prescribing is guess work. Research shows us that doctors misdiagnoses, and mis prescribe 10% to 15 % of the time.
Were antibiotics a revolution?
Indeed, when antibiotics were introduced into the medical system in the early 1900’s they were a medical revolution. During the Second World War they became widely used to treat infection in soldiers.
After the war they were in hospitals and doctors’ surgeries to fight infections, particularly penicillin. For many years they were used for all sorts of infections and different antibiotics have been developed.
Bacteria, however, are very smart, and they change their structure to become resistant to antibiotics. Health care professionals have over prescribed them when the illness was not particularly dangerous or to prevent illness.
Thousands of years of treatment with traditional successful plant-based medicine were abandoned by allopathic medicine, because it was easier to reach for antibiotics. This overuse has caused a worldwide problem of antibiotic-resistant life-threatening bacteria both in hospitals and in the general population. (3)
Microbiome damage from antibiotics
The gut has a balance of good friendly bacteria (commensal) and bad bacteria that can make you sick. Antibiotics not only kills infection but also the good bacteria in your bowel. (4)
So, you can get an overgrowth of bad bacteria (dysbiosis) with conditions due to bacteria like Klebsiella pneumoniae, Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) and otheres. These give rise to loose stools, gastrointestinal pain and can be life threatening.
Your gut is where you absorb your nutrients and if it’s not working properly or damaged you become malnourished. You may retain weight through eating empty calories (macronutrients), but you are not properly absorbing essential micronutrients like vitamins and minerals.
Because antibiotics can cause damage to the lining of the gut, where you absorb nutrients, it can lead to persistent body dysfunction. A loss and any micronutrient led to both short term and long-term illness.
Antibiotic damage to the skin
Not only do antibiotics damage the bacteria in the bowel but also throughout the body. Your skin has its own friendly protective bacteria that repairs it and keeps out infections, which antibiotics damage. (5)
The skin is the largest organs of your body. Since we are 90% water, we need the skin to keep that water in, so we are hydrated. When the skin becomes dry and cracked it lets in infection which can lead to sepsis (blood infection and poisoning) which can kill us very quickly.
Allergic reactions to antibiotics can cause the skin to blister and let in an infection. It can cause the skin to become necrotic (dead), fall off, which quickly exposes to life threatening bacteria.
Another side effect problem that can occur is you can stop sweating (hypohidrosis) so the skin does not cool. Sweating cools the skin and without it you become over heated, and the skin busts open.
Being ignored by the medical establishment
Most health professionals are not trained to deal with the side-effects of antibiotics. Even if you become anaphylactic, they can advise you to keep taking the medication, even though it may be killing you. (6)
They are in a bind really because if they tell you to stop taking it and you die, they could be sued or undergo disciplinary action.
They may switch antibiotics to try avoiding the side-effects but by that time the damage has been done, and the side-effects may be far worse than the original illness in the first place.
Some of those side effects may lead to a weakened immune system, further bacterial, viral and fungal infections. This means you can end up with several illnesses at the same time and develop conditions like chronic fatigue syndrome or lifelong allergies.
Antibiotic side effect recover plan
The first thing I do with patients is take a full history which is very detailed. We must look at so many aspects of your health habits to consider how you need to make changes.
The next thing I order are tests, sometimes quite a lot of them. As a clinical naturopath for me the science is in the numbers and the reports. This includes blood profiles, bowel tests and even genetic profiles.
Only, when we have all this data, can we really tell what is happening and make a careful wise clinical decision about how to help you. I am a science inform practitioner – I want to know the facts.
To help maximize what recovery can achieve we have to make a complete and considered treatment plan, which I require you to stick with. This may include a multi-disciplinary approach to help you in the different areas you may need help.
And finally, which is equally important, is helping you with your mental health. For some you, want has happened can be mentally and emotionally devastating and you also need help in this area.
Dr Tracie O’Keefe DCH, BHSc, ND is a clinical naturopath, medical herbalist and medical nutritionist, and mental health professional in Sydney. You can make an appointment with Dr Tracie O’Keefe for naturopathic medicine. Call 0403 398808 now. In clinic visits or via the internet from anywhere in the world.
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References
(1) Jourdan, A., Sangha, B., Kim, E., Nawaz, S., Malik, V., Vij, R., & Sekhsaria, S. (2020). Antibiotic hypersensitivity and adverse reactions: Management and implications in clinical practice. Clinical and Molecular Allergy, 18(1), Article 21. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6974965/
(2) Dyar, O. J., Pulcini, C., Howard, P., Nathwani, D., & ESGAP (2014). Junior doctors’ knowledge and perceptions of antibiotic resistance and prescribing: A survey in France and Scotland. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, 69(3), 790–796. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20132254/
(3) Tang, K. W. K., Millar, B. C., & Moore, J. E. (2023). Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). British Journal of Biomedical Science, 80(3), 1–5. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37448857/
(4) Patangia, D. V., Ryan, C. A., Dempsey, E., Ross, R. P., & Stanton, C. (2022). Impact of antibiotics on the human microbiome and consequences for host health. MicrobiologyOpen, 11(1), e1250. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8756738/
(5) Wang, L., Jin, X., & Zhang, J. (2024). Antibiotic-induced severe cutaneous adverse reactions: A single-center retrospective study over ten years. Frontiers in Immunology, 15, 1415830. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2024.1415830/full
(6) Gómez, J. A., Rojas, P. M., & Castillo, D. F. (2024). Understanding antibiotic knowledge, attitudes, and practices: A cross-sectional study in physicians from a Colombian region, 2023. BMC Medical Education, 24, 5354. https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-024-05354-w
