CURRENT AND PRESENT DANGER OF ANTIBIOTIC OVERUSE: AN ANTIBIOTIC RELATED INFECTION THAT CAN KILL YOU

Antibiotics perhaps are one of the greatest advances and discoveries in the world of medical sciences. When truly needed and used properly they save lives. Diseases like septic shock would take every single life if it was not for antibiotics.

AND THE AWARD GOES TO
Alexander Fleming, an English bacteriologist, for discovering PENICILLIN, THE FIRST ANTIBIOTIC, IN 1928

ANTIBOTICS can also kill by causing severe reactions for which doctors have scary names.
Yet there is an under recognized and not well publicly known phenomenon that we should all know about.
It is called,

CLOSTRIDIUM DIFFICILE COLITIS
It is a life threatening inflammatory disease of the colon resulting from antibiotic use.
About half a million people in USA are affected each year and incidence and severity is rising.

C diff ( clostridium difficile) bacteria are found throughout the environment. They are also found in human feces. When hands are not properly washed these bacteria and their spores can spread.
You have nearly 2000 different bacteria in your gut. These are the good guys. Some of us carry s small amount of c diff in our gut without ill effects.

When antibiotics are given they can kill the good bacteria and the susceptible colon can now get infected with C diff, either via the infected environment or by overgrowth of ones own C diff.

SYMPTOMS
Watery diarrhea
Fever
Cramps
Abdominal pain
And many others depending on stage of disease.

TREATMENT
Here is the scary part
Sometimes no treatment is effective and death may result.
Ironic but you have to take more antibiotics to try to treat it
Sometimes the only effective treatment is surgically permanently removing the colon.
More recent treatment option is STOOL TRANSPLANT. Believe it or not there are now stool banks where "good stool" is stored to be transplanted into a patients colon that has life threatening C diff colitis.

The only way to help the situation is to decrease use of antibiotics. The medical system is overusing antibiotics at an alarming rate. People are used to asking for antibiotics for simple sore throats or colds or sinus infections where the issue is likely to go away without antibiotics.
We all need to change our habits.
NEXT TIME YOU THINK YOU NEED ANTIBIOTICS, ASK YOUR DOCTOR IF YOU REALLY NEED THEM. IT MAY SAVE YOUR LIFE

.
Thank you all for your attention
Spread the word

Upvote
Resteem, you may save a life.
Comment