Antibiotics: Yay or Nay?

Con: Antibiotics cause Herxheimer reactions

Problems with herxing

1. Sometimes we kill off more than we can detox. If your glands are swollen, cut back your dosage.
2. Sometimes you are not herxing, but having adverse reactions to antibiotics.
3. Inflammation is an immune response to the presence of toxins in the blood (and antibiotics are very toxic).

Your adrenals may be too weak to deal with such extreme die-off. Having adrenal fatigue makes it hard for all your organs to work, and hard to fight off infections. If your adrenals are already depleted, than be wary of the elevated toxic load that will occur with antibiotic use and die-off.

Pro: For Antibiotics

1. LLMDs believe antibiotics are a key part in curing Lyme.
2. Macrolide antibiotics like azithromycins attack the spirochetes that make camp in our cells. They are also great in that they kill Lyme in hard to get at tissues.
3. Some antibiotics are bactericidal, killing pathogens. Others are bacteriostatic, meaning they manipulate the pathogens to stop producing so that our bodies can eliminate what remains. A combination of these antibiotics can make symptoms improve quickly.
4. If you do go the antibiotic route and have late stage Lyme, long courses of antibiotics may be better. Lyme is persistent, and it takes a long time to eradicate (if even possible). Unless you have eliminated all biofilm and killed the infection in every tissue in your body, expect short-term remission to be temporary. Long courses of antibiotics may not be enough, but short courses of antibiotics are most certainly not enough.

Against Antibiotics

1. Most people who have symptoms find they remain or return after antibiotics are discontinued.
2. Antibiotics are hard on the body; they cause inflammation, nerve damage, and digestive problems.
3. IV pic lines get infected and cause blood clots.
4. Antibiotic addicts won’t come off their meds in fear that the Lyme will return and milder treatments won’t be strong enough ever again.
5. Lyme penetrates our human cells like a virus, making it hard for antibiotics to get at.
6. Germs live off dead matter. In theory, if your body wasn’t toxic to begin with you may not have gotten so sick. Flies don’t swarm around unless there is a pile of poo to swarm. It’s not as simple as taking antibiotics and continuing your bad habits.
7. Some germs are good. They eat dead matter and digest things that human cells cannot.
8. With a healthy digestive system, our microbiome should be able to kill bacterial invaders.
9. To kill the germs inside the body is also to kill the body.
10. Antibiotics lower resistance to germs. This is not controversial. Human blood kills germs, carbolic acid kills germs, but human blood mixed with carbolic acid does a poor job at killing germs.
11. If we remove ourselves from toxic environments, then our bodies should slowly eliminate toxin loads. We may be blaming the Lyme for our toxic bodies without trying limit toxicity elsewhere.

Solutions

1. Whether you take antibiotics or not, acknowledge that if other lifestyle changes are not made, your protocol is incomplete.
2. Determine if your adrenals are working sufficiently. Click here for more details on adrenal fatigue. Get sufficient, consistent sleep to help your body build up its defenses.
3. Take a genetic test to see if you have mutations that make it hard to detox. If you do, then extra care and consideration of what you put in your body is required.
4. Do an elimination diet. Ingesting things that you are sensitive to will add unnecessary amounts of inflammation in your body.
5. Get an adequate amount of nutrition. Underfeeding and overfeeding are both detrimental to recovery.
6. Take enzymes to help digest debris and break down biofilm.
7. Try being symptom free for 6 months before stopping whatever protocol you are on. And even then, stay healthy! You may be in remission – not “cured.”