51–60 of 67 posts
How do you know when it is "necessary" to take antibiotics?
But when a doctor prescribes a medication a useful question (no matter what the medication) is "What happens if I don't take it? What happens if we just watch and wait?"
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I don't think that there are that many assumptions. The core assumption is this: having a more diverse gut microbiome is healthier.
Do you have any sources to back that up? I don't see anywhere in the article that it says the diversity in the gut was reduced. It says it was altered. Also, if you change your diet, your diversity is also potentially reduced. Is that bad too?
Yes, potentially contributes to obesity in some people or anorexia in others.
I think saying that antibiotics "mess up" your gut microbiome is making a lot of assumptions. Your biome changes if your diet changes. Saying that "any change" is "messing things up" is something I don't think has been proven. Of course, there are risks of using antibiotic like C. difficile infections, but saying more than that is stretching the truth.
Right they don't say if it causes any harm. Antibiotics may occasionally have side effects, but lack of micro-biome diversity doesn't necessarily matter. If it made a big difference, you would expect to see more common side effects.
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Don't get the downvotes. Sinus infections are a serious quality of life issue for some of us. I've had them drag on for weeks, then after a day of antibiotics, I feel like a new man.
Wow. Which antibiotic(s)? I've found that I don't generally get a noticeable therapeutic effect until near the end of the antibiotics course with sinusitis.
How do you know when it is "necessary" to take antibiotics?
Since there's so much interest in gut biomes you may be interested in learning that what you eat greatly influences your biome. A vegan diet has been shown to substantially change your flora [1] in as little as a day [2]. I also found this video on the role of fiber, our gut flora, and our immune system interesting [3]. [1]: http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v66/n1/full/ejcn2011141a.... [2]: http://www.nature.com/na…
The gut biome topic is hot now, but our understanding of it is so new and so limited that it's going to take a while to be confident about what would be a "good" or "healthy" biome in particular ways. It's definitely easy to change it, but still kind of unclear about how to know when particular changes can reasonably be called good or bad or beneficial or harmful (with particular counterexamples like clostridium difficile infection -- that seems bad).
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It isn't possible to do a "full" reset without antibiotics (and even then it isn't 100% complete). The next best thing you can do is fasting. Fasting greatly restricts the food supply to the microbes in your gut (gut mucus production still feeds them to a degree), causing a fairly large die-off and shift in bacterial equilibrium. Anywhere between 4 and 7 days is a good target, and it doesn't have to be a strict fast,…
Thanks! Several people have told me about this too. I will try it.
The not eating thing is actually pretty tolerable if you are already ketotic. But the transition to ketosis can be rough, and it's easier if you can eat while that happens.
One of the biggest things when you fast or do a ketogenic diet, you lose a lot of water (and with it, salt!), so maintaining electrolyte balance is huge. Your blood pressure will go down, and you'll feel awful if you don't add in some salt.
Since there's so much interest in gut biomes you may be interested in learning that what you eat greatly influences your biome. A vegan diet has been shown to substantially change your flora [1] in as little as a day [2]. I also found this video on the role of fiber, our gut flora, and our immune system interesting [3]. [1]: http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v66/n1/full/ejcn2011141a.... [2]: http://www.nature.com/na…
Thanks, I am a recently turned vegan. I can't say I have experienced the change in "as little as a day". I've been a lifelong lacto-vegetarian (like most indian people) and recently dropped diary (last 2 years).
Nitpick: Most Indians are NOT vegetarians, less than a third are. http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/the-food-habits-of-a-na...
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Wow. Which antibiotic(s)? I've found that I don't generally get a noticeable therapeutic effect until near the end of the antibiotics course with sinusitis.
Maybe it wasn't a sinus infection? I hate the damn things because they're a lot like a cold and it seems like the recommendation is "if you're still miserable after 2 weeks, maybe you should go to a doctor". Then you discover that you could have been feeling better days ago...
What you need to watch out for is a clogged nostril, no air in the sinuses means an infection.
So that's the goal: Get air in there.
Try antihistamines, they work sometimes - even if you don't otherwise need them, if they clear your sinuses it's worth it.
You can also try "air hunger", if your body feels it needs extra air it will open the closed sinus. The best way to do this is to run up and down some stairs until it's fully open - then get lots of air in there and blow your nose.
It'll close right back up, but it will still help. Blowing your nose will also cause it to close, so hold off until it's fully open, even if you feel you need to blow your nose right away. (Or do it twice.)
Another method is to hold your breath till you need air really really badly (not just a bit, but really badly), this can also cause it to open, but is more unpleasant (but might be your only option if too weak to run).
A tip for both methods: Close the nostril that was open before with your finger and breath a lot through the one that used to be closed. You might be able to convince your body to switch which sinus it closes. This is good since you can alternate and get air in both. Doesn't always work though.