Antibiotics?

[[Sh...]]

I see a lot of people saying antibiotics set them back a lot years after totally healing. 
check out this story from “it’s my time” as an example:

I find this very concerning and bizarre. Do a lot of antibiotics affect GABA? What could be the reason of these causing setbacks

[[Cr...]]

Make sure you take several factors into consideration before alarming yourself.

Even though there are what seems like many members on this site and other benzo support groups, the truth is our reaction (withdrawal severity and length) appears to be in the minority of total benzodiazepine users. Not insignificant, but a minority nonetheless. If I had to guess I would say around 15%. (Pure guess)

So this site is mostly made up of worst case scenarios in regards to benzo withdrawal.  Now of this minority, when it comes to antibiotics there are some that have reactions like the story you posted, some that have minor reactions, and many that have had no negative reactions or had reactions that were typical sans wd (rash, nausea, etc).

For the sake of argument. Let's say out of every 1 million benzo wd suffers like us, only 100 had a bad reaction to antibiotics and of those only 10 were severe (long lasting). There is a high chance that many of those 10 would end up on this site. Let's say about 7. Now I imagine if you read 7 different threads about severe reactions to antibiotics from members far into recovery that would seem like it is a very common to the point of being expected.

People that have no reactions to antibiotics are unlikely to write posts or make threads about it. So if you search the site for threads from members discussing the aftermath of antibiotic use almost all will be bad reactions. That will skew your perception of how common it is.

I did not use any actual data to come up with my stats. For all I know reactions could be more common, or even less common, than I stated above.

The point is that you can't let a couple posts, from a site specifically representing the worst case scenarios, make you live in fear for the rest of your life. Even if the chance of a bad reaction was indeed 100 for every 1 million, some people just prefer not to take the risk no matter how small the chances. So I would understand if you decide to avoid ABs when possible.

I have used antibiotics several times since withdrawal and have experienced no setbacks. If you got 1000 replies to this thread and only 10 people said they had bad reactions, that will still be 10 more horror stories added to the site history.

Just some food for thought.

[Guest [It...]]

Hi Shinji, 

 

I'm sorry if my story triggered you. It can be hard when you're in the earlier years off and you read a story of many years of suffering.

What I can tell you is that I know more people who haven't had major issues with antibiotics then people who have had issues with antibiotics. Sadly though, people like me do exist though and severe setbacks to antibiotics occur and that's why its smart to be informed and to only take medication when its TRULY needed. I also work in healthcare and as much as we would like to believe that antibiotics are nothing but miracle drugs (which they definitely are in some aspects) they can also cause some serious adverse reactions in the healthiest, non pharmaceutically harmed people. So again, its just best to be informed. That also doesn't mean that If you ever needed an antibiotic or other medication that a setback or severe flare up would be your story. 

Rest assured, most people will not experience a setback throughout the duration of their withdrawal. 

[[id...]]

I'm one of those people who were damaged by an antibiotic (Cipro) and since then FDA added a black box warning to that class of antibiotics. So I'd look out for that kind of antibiotics and avoid them. 

I did get a regular IV antibiotic during a surgery 2 years ago and even though I did feel some effects from it, I was also under general anesthesia so the side effects could have been from that. I did recover very soon and was totally functional until my recent wave that I can't quite pin point on anything. Could have been due to the car accident, could have been due to stopping an anticholinergic medication, unisom. The wave started weeks after those events so I can't confidently say those events were or weren't triggers. 

It's unrelated to antibiotics but what I'm saying is that our CNS is so sensitive that anything can trigger a wave and we have a choice to live in constant fear (to be honest, I'm guilty of slipping into that mindset at times) or take chances because life is a gamble anyway.