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Sometimes no matter what you do, you catch a bug. Sometimes you need antibiotics.
Myth: Taking Antibiotics kills ALL the bacteria in your gut. This is not true. But antibiotics disrupt the neighborhood and causes some collateral damage!
What is your gut in the first place? Your digestive system begins in your mouth and ends at your anus. When health professionals refer to your gut we are mostly talking about your small intestine, but your gut includes your large intestine (colon) as well. The small intestine is super long, around 23 feet, and sits just below the stomach. It has 3 main parts, the duodenum, jejunum, and the ileum. Most of the foods we eat are broken down in the duodenum and absorbed along the way. Your small intestine is a hollow tube with finger-like little projections (villi) in it to capture nutrients to slowly absorb. The surface area of the average small intestine is the size of a tennis court! About 70 % of your immune system is right here in the small intestine!
The small intestine is all about slow absorption. Leaky Gut or Increased Intestinal Permeability, damages the villi and the lining or wall of the intestine. More precisely, your Epithelial cells. This damage loosens the tight junctions between the cells of the intestinal lining and allows undigested foods to enter the bloodstream, mostly proteins, bacteria, viruses and other pathogens like pesticides and such... Since this is not the appropriate time or place for these nutrients, or pathogens to enter the body, the immune system kicks into gear and tries to attack and remove the unwanted material.
All along your digestive system, the body has ways of protecting us and for breaking down nutrients and removing pathogens (toxins). Digestion begins in the brain. Sitting down and chewing your food thoroughly will help your brain switch your body into a relaxed state: Rest to Digest (parasympathetic state) instead of Fight or Flight (sympathetic)
When you are stressed out or running for your life, your body focusing on keeping you alive, not maximizing your digestion or hormone efforts!
Eating on the run actually interferes with this state of Rest to Digest and can stop you from getting all those precious nutrients from your food, it also interferes with your immune system response. Resting and digesting are great for weight loss, hormone balance, and blood sugar balance especially, but also your immune system!
Once the food is properly chewed and hit our stomach, if we are in Rest to Digest mode then our stomach acid production is turned on. This is the first line of defense for our immune system. It is looking to kill anything harmful to our bodies in that acidic environment of the stomach. If you are taking antacids or proton pump inhibitors (Prilosec) then your immune system has already been hindered.
Would it surprise you to know that most of the people that are on PPI's have too little stomach acid and not too much?! We will talk about that more in the future but if this is you I would recommend reading, "Why Stomach Acid Is Good For You."
Once your stomach has broken down the food it is moved into the small intestine in the area of the duodenum. When fats are detected, bile is secreted by the gallbladder to help break it down for use. Eating a low-fat diet allows for the unused bile to stay in the gallbladder and eventually cause problems like Gallstones or Gallbladder removal not to mention poor fat metabolism when fat IS consumed. The bile becomes thick and sluggish and the fat often remains undigested and therefore unused.
Our bodies need fat and we have a built-in way of breaking down and using that fat for many important roles in the body. One role is to maintain cellular health! Our cells have a fatty wall as the outer layer! They are made out of fat! We also need fats to make hormones, ALL of our hormones. We need fat for energy, and for satiety. We also need fats to synthesize vitamins A, D, E and K, the Fat-Soluble vitamins!
It doesn't matter how many Vitamin D supplements you take if you aren't getting enough fat in your diet.
All along the small and large intestine, we have a bacteria-rich environment. It's a neighborhood. We call it your gut microbiome and gut flora are the residents.
The gut flora is a ratio of good, bad and neutral bacteria. There are thousands of different types and strains. The more diverse your gut flora, the better equipped it will be to handle a fight. We need them all, good, bad and neutral. But the trick is to have them in a certain balance. 80-85% should be the good guys, 10-15% bad guys and the rest neutral.
Gut dysbiosis is when the bad guys are too plentiful because the ratio is off. This happens for many reasons, poor diet, excess stress, illness, inflammation, infections, viruses, parasites, toxins in the environment like pesticides, illnesses, and medications.
A lot of things on that list are under our control. But sometimes an infection breaks through your immune system defenses and must be treated with medication? How can you protect your microbiome? How can you destroy the invaders that have taken up too much space in your gut microbiome neighborhood and not ruin the whole neighborhood?
I personally have done a lot of work on repairing, rebalancing and restoring my gut flora to a healthy and productive state. It's been a process of working through my diet, stress management, healing supplements, and spiritual work.
It doesn't happen in a day. But it is so worth it. I have also worked with Functional Medical Doctors to run certain tests to make sure I don't have something like SIBO going on! (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth)
It takes time and consistency to restore your gut health. But research is proving that the condition of your gut and the development of illness and disease should not be and cannot be dismissed. One comes before the other in most cases.
That being said, what happens when a pathogen breaks through your immune system and you must take an antibiotic?
Take pre and probiotics during and after your course of treatment. Your probiotic effort won't be wasted by the antibiotics. Number 1, antibiotics are designed to kill specific strains of bacteria and number 2, probiotics don't need to colonize, they can work on the fly! Here is one of many randomized studies that show this effect.
Most of the studies have used well-known strains of bacteria such as Lactobacilli, Bifidobacteria, or Saccharomyces boulardii. Lactobacilli and Bifidobacteria are the most common and can easily be found in health food stores. I for one make Lacto-fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kombucha, and pickles. But to have a strong immune system we need our gut bacteria to be diverse, so I add in saccharomyces boulardii as a supplement. This is a yeast bacteria, a good yeast, a beneficial yeast. Antibiotics can't kill it. Another cool aspect of S. Boulardii is that it won't lead to antibiotic resistance and later developing superbugs.
Another good option while taking antibiotics is soil-based probiotics. I like Prescript Assit. It has something like 29 different strains of good bacteria.
Another thing to remember is to change up your probiotics every few months. It's all about diversity.
If you don't regularly have a pre and probiotic-rich diet, then start slowly by eating lacto-fermented foods such as sauerkraut, beet kavas, coconut fermented yogurt, kimchi, kombucha, and coconut kefir.
I am also a big fan of eating resistant starch as prebiotics such as yacon syrup and other starchy veggies. Yacon is made from a root and is a lot like molasses and can be used as a sweetener but without the risk of raising your blood sugar. I enjoy it in my morning hot drink, and sometimes just a spoonful all by itself. Another yummy way of getting some resistant starch is by cooking, cooling and storing for later, sweet potatoes, rice or green plantains. The cooking and cooling process changes the way the body handles the starch. In fact, it won't breakdown and use that starch for sugar, aka glucose. The starch will slip right on through the small intestine and will feed your gut bacteria lower down the chain! That good gut bacteria will use the starch to REPAIR your intestinal lining! Yep, kinda like stucco. The RS feeds the bacteria that release the stucco! Pretty cool!
Yes, you can re-heat the food and it will still be a resistant starch (RS). Another food option for resistant starch is buying it in powder form like Bob's Red Mill.
Here is something to remember when it comes to taking antibiotics: Love your liver.
So, the antibiotics are doing the job of killing the bad bacteria that is making you sick, like if you have a urinary tract infection or strep throat per se. Once the bacteria have been eradicated by the antibiotics, the bacteria are placed into your detox system. The blood, your lymphatic system, liver, and kidneys. The liver needs to package up ALL those pathogens to be dumped from the body.
Since your liver performs over 300 functions, let's make sure it is supported with the extra load!
This is where eating leafy greens, bitter greens, in particular, come into play. Have a daily green smoothie! But keep the fruit to a minimum, excess sugar creates inflammation. We don't want that! You can also grab some milk thistle in supplement form. I also like Liver Lover by Bioray. It's a tasty little liquid that only requires a dropper full.
There are a lot of people that get headaches, nausea and diarrhea from antibiotics. They are doing their job after all. Drinking plenty of water to help flush out the eradicated bacteria, and enjoying ginger teas are helpful too.
I also recommend extra focus to heal the gut lining while on antibiotics. Nothing is better than good old fashioned bone broth for that. I even ramp up a bit more and add hydrolyzed collagen to my morning drink for everyday gut health. Our gut lining loves amino acids.
Don't forget to sleep. You gotta prioritize your sleep need. Get off those screens, dim the lights, cool the room, relax. Let your body rest its digestive system and also clear out the brain waste that has built up during the day. If you can, go at least 12 hours between eating dinner and your breakfast great! Consider it a Fast.
If you can and need to have a cat nap during the day, do it! Your body is working hard right now! Lack of sleep is an added stress on your body. While your body is in Fight or Flight with this infection, it will put other systems on the back burner. Things like hormone regulation....hhhhmm...
Keep moving. I am not saying workout! I am saying keep up some light movement throughout your day. Your lymphatic system is like your waste management highway. To keep the traffic flowing you need water, and muscle movement to squeeze it along. For more lymph mojo info and how to better care for it, watch my interview with Dr. Perry!
The Plan:
1. Take care of your gut health when you are well not just when you aren't.
2. Prebiotic and probiotics during and after a course of antibiotics.
3. Take extra care and support your liver.
4. Take extra care and support your gut lining.
5. Drink lots of water.
6. Get plenty of sleep.
7. Move your body.
Sometimes it just happens. It happened to me recently. Taking an active role in your daily wellness includes following a healing protocol at times.
Merry Christmas!
~Brandi
My first line of defense is always natural, always food and lifestyle.
I use my Restore® checklist:
Rest: Am I resting? Am I managing my stress load? Have I been meditating daily?
Eat: How is my eating? Anything unusual?
Sleep: How is my sleep time and quality?
Tribe Check: Who have I been hanging around with? People that positively affect me or people that stress me out.
Opening up: Have I been journaling, and praying? Getting those feelings out and deal with?
Repair: Am working too much? Working out too much? Eating foods that heal and repair?
Exercise? Too much, too little, the wrong kind?
So, I did a little assessment, what I CAN control, I felt I was doing ok with. But at the end of the day, Sunday actually, I got myself an infection.
Monday I hit the natural protocols and saw no immediate improvement, actually it was getting worse, so I did what I had to do, I called my online, virtual doctor. I have a variety of doctors for different things as do most people. I like Plushcare for simple stuff, for example, ear infections and the like.
I am grateful for modern medicine and drugs like our antibiotics. The last time I was on an antibiotic was about 22 years ago I believe, I just had our second son and got a breast infection. So it's safe to say that I won't have an issue with resistance in my body. I have rarely used them.