I have a lot of respect for antibiotics. I think they are one of life’s miracles. They have saved millions of lives and changed our existence on this planet for the better in many ways.
In general, I am very open minded about the use of antibiotics, but I also am aware of the problems with their overuse and the dangers of the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria caused as a result of overuse.
Antibiotics have saved the lives of several of my family members over the course of my lifetime. This includes my children, my mother and my pets.
I have three children who are older now. Two of them had pneumonia, and one of them had it twice. My daughter had it once. She did not respond well to the first antibiotic and her condition declined rapidly in a 24 hour span of time. We had to make an emergency call to the doctor to get a different antibiotic. It happened to be on Thanksgiving day and he was out of town, so it took 8 hours to contact him. Then we had to wait another 10 hours to actually get the new antibiotic. It was the same kind but had an additional component made to kill off resistant bacteria. Once she got that, she was able to recover. It was very obvious to me that without the special, modified antibiotic that was able to kill off resistant strains of bacteria, she would have been in a life threatening situation.
My son had a severe case of pneumonia and was coughing up blood. The antibiotics killed the infection and he was fine after that.
My mother, in her old age, had developed a septic infection from a urinary tract infection. She was admitted to the hospital and almost died from the infection. Again, antibiotics saved her life. Without them there wouldn’t have been much that doctors could do to help her.
Last year I had another interesting experience with antibiotics. I had a sick parrot that was diagnosed with advanced heart disease. He became very very ill one weekend and nearly died right after his initial diagnosis. The veterinarian gave him antibiotics but he didn’t respond to them. She told me to be prepared to euthanize him because she felt they had done all they could for him. I had a suspicion that he had a secondary pneumonia bacterial infection so I asked her for stronger antibiotics. She agreed and he improved within two days and it saved his life. He lived for another year, so I got a whole extra year with him.
I know there are some people who believe that it’s better not to take antibiotics, thinking that without them your body will build up natural immunities to whatever the invader is. They think antibiotics disrupt the natural flow of life, like they are an easy way out. My sister is a homeopathic doctor, and I have seen this type of naive, simplistic way of thinking. It may be true if you don’t mind dying younger or suffering needlessly. Our bodies are not made to live forever and there are plenty of cases where letting things progress as they would without medical intervention or antibiotics end up to be fatal, or with long term unwanted consequences.
Since we have been learning more about probiotics, I am beginning to think that they may be equally as powerful as antibiotics in a preventative way and I have developed an interest in trying to solve some of my problems with them. For example, I have chronic sinus allergy problems. Whenever I take antibiotics for other things, my nose clears up dramatically and I can breathe again. I feel that my life would change for the better if I could always breathe that way. I’m guessing I have a microbiome in my sinuses. Because of what we have learned in class, it has occurred to me that rather than using antibiotics, I could try probiotics to try to change the microbiome in my sinuses. It wouldn’t surprise me if I had an event or past habit that changed the healthy balance of my sinus microbiome to an unhealthy one. I used to smoke when I was much younger, and that could have possibly been part of it.
I feel, in general, that people take antibiotics for granted and don’t think about how miraculous they really are, and how many millions of lives they have saved. Besides, clean water, electricity and vaccines, I would bet that antibiotics are one of the main things responsible for our longer life spans and in general, a better quality of life.
I will happily and with very much appreciation take them as needed. I wish I could get them more easily when I need them.
