Antibiotics Side Effects: 5 Facts to Consider Before Taking Antibiotic

Antibiotics. Image belong to Science in Daily Life

I remember the day when i was still a working mother, a friend at my workplace offered me an antibiotics to cure my sore throat. She relate this with her own experience. She took antibiotics when she got flu and sore throat, and in less than 10 days she felt better. I don't like taking medicine. I used to drink a lot of water and preferred to apply eucalyptus oil for relief instead of taking antibiotics. So I just turn down her offer with thank you.

Taking antibiotics to get rid of flu, cough or sore throat. 

Is this sound common to you? Many people owed their lives to antibiotic. Bacteria are one-celled organisms that live on our skin, in our digestive system, and in our mouths and throats. This good bacteria serve a positive role in our body to promote health. But some are harmful and cause illness including ear infections, and strep throat. Antibiotics is a type of drugs which slow or kill the growth of bacteria from making important chemicals they need to survive. Some interfere with the genetic material in a bacterial cell and cause it to stop the bacterial cell dividing into two and multiplying.

Antibiotic is a powerful tool to fight illness cause by bacteria. But if it used with less respect antibiotics may do more harm than good. I found worth reading article on Healthier Talk written by Dr. Alan Inglis about the side effects of antibiotic when they're overused, or over-prescribed. The next time you think you need antibiotics to treat flu or other illness, do consider this harmful side effects that you may experience from overuse antibiotics.

cartoon from Jill Stanek

1. Antibiotics may cause breast cancer 
One study shows that over a 17-year period, women who took antibiotics for over 500 days or who had over 17 prescriptions had double the risk of developing breast cancer. That’s a 100 percent increase! One expert stated, “It’s as strong a risk factor as we have.”

2. Antibiotics destroy your immune system 
Three quarters of your immune system is located in your gut, where it protects against foreign toxic substances in your food. A healthy balance of gut material is essential to normal immune system functioning. But if you take too many antibiotics too often this natural function is disturbed. In addition to contributing to the risk for chronic degenerative diseases, overuse can be responsible for an increase in risk of both lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, where the immune system becomes confused and attacks one or more tissue types or organs in the body.

3. Antibiotics cause diarrhea 
You’ve probably read the warning label and maybe you’ve even experienced this side effect before. Antibiotics wreak havoc on your stomach. Patients on antibiotics develop diarrhea because the normal balance between good bacteria and bad bacteria in the gut is disturbed. To avoid diarrhea, I recommend a probiotic supplement (which is healthy bacteria) three times a day while taking an antibiotic.

4. Antibiotics cause colon disease 
Antibiotics kill good bacteria. And they can also cause a severe inflammatory disease of the colon called C. Diff colitis. C. Diff is short for clostridium difficile, a resident gut bacteria that causes trouble when not held in check by normal amounts of good bacteria. This results in severe diarrheal illness and can even lead to colon surgery––or in rare cases, death.

5. Antibiotics promotes the growth of hard-to-treat resistant bacteria
Overusing antibiotics will eventually lead to bacteria being resistant to the drug and eventually not working at all. The result can be anything from a urinary tract infection that doesn’t go away to death from a so-called “superbug” resistant to all antibiotics. These superbugs are a worry more for the elderly and chronically ill, whose immune systems are worn out.


Visit Healthier Talk for further reading. Other related resource is Antimicrobial Resistance.

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Painkillers: How to Prevent Accidental Addiction

Picture from yourhsw.com

Painkillers are medications designed specifically to ease pain. Usually painkillers are created and sold by pharmaceutical companies. While some painkillers have specific healthcare purposes, like certain migraine formulations, most painkillers are general purpose. 

Micheal Jackson. Painkillers may have been factor to his death.

How people addicted to painkillers? The painkillers contain opiates which affects certain regions of the brain which control our feeling of pleasure. This feeling of pleasure combined with a heightened feeling and physical and mental dependence leads to addiction to painkiller addiction. 

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The reason of painkiller addiction varies from person to person.the cases of accidental addiction are unfortunate most of the time. There are certain methods that every person prescribed with painkillers should follow to prevent this accidental addiction to painkillers. Some of those methods or precautions are described below.

1. The prescription must be strictly and carefully followed. Before leaving the hospital, take all the details from the doctor under whom you were admitted and treated.
2. If you feel that the dosage of painkiller is not working anymore, consult the doctor immediately. Do not increase or decrease the dosage of painkiller without consulting the doctor. A slight mistake during this period can be devastating.
3. Always complete the total course of painkillers, do not stop your dosage before the prescribed period. And do not continue taking the painkillers after the prescribed date is over. This can also cause serious harm, which is physical dependence on painkillers.
4. Do not crush the pills while taking them. The pills are designed in such a way that it releases very slowly. Crushed pills will release huge amount of the medicine instantly which can cause toxic effect to your body.
5. Do not other people’s prescription for your ailments. Tolerance levels of every people are different from each other and so vary the dosage and quality of painkillers. A doctor knows best what dosage or type of painkiller you need.

RELATED: When Painkillers Become Dangerous: What Everyone Needs to Know About OxyContin and Other Prescription Drugs

If any person gets addicted to painkillers by any chance, there is no way to get back unless proper treatment is received from any painkiller rehab.

P/S: Cliffside Malibu is a luxury alcohol and effects of painkiller addiction located in Malibu, California. Click for further details about Cliffside's treatment methods, amenities, or other general information about their painkiller addiction help and painkiller addiction signs.

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Eucalyptus Oil : Its Many Uses Other Than Treating Colds and Coughs

Eucalyptus forest in Australia. Photo from greenlivingtips

Eucalyptus oil is the generic name for distilled oil from the leaf of Eucalyptus, a genus of the plant family Myrtaceae native to Australia and cultivated worldwide. I quote this explanation from the wikipedia. I like the smell of eucalyptus oil. It smell like a baby, so fresh and clean.

I literally use eucalyptus oil whenever I caught with a colds and coughs. I know I'm going to be sick when I have a dry cough, sometimes comes with a sore throat. Before it going worse, I will seek eucalyptus oil for the magic cure. Drab a drop of eucalyptus oil on nostrils. Massage the oil briskly on the chest and back. For babies, dilute the eucalyptus oil in water and baby oil and rub with gentle on his chest and back.

Well, eucalyptus oil is not only good at treating colds and coughs. It also best use to relieve breathing discomfort. When you have runny nose, sometimes breathing is difficult that you have to breathe through the mouth. Breathing discomfort is really miserable especially during bedtime. Add required amount of eucalyptus oil to a bowl of steaming hot water, cover the head with a towel and inhale the penetrating vapors to clear up a stuffy nose and make breathing easier.

I use this eucalyptus oil for my baby after his bath. I simply rub this oil gently on his abdomen to ease flatulence. This oil is good in preventing 'wind' for newborn when applied to their navels.

Using eucalyptus oil for baby bath stimulates blood circulation. But I rarely use it for my baby bath, instead I use for mine. Just add a few drop of eucalyptus oil in your warm bath water. It gives invigorating feeling. When I caught with colds, taking bath with a mixture of eucalyptus oil in a warm water keep my body warm.

When travel far, no matter by plane or car I always feel terrible because I have always had a motion sickness. If you ever had experience like me, you know what I'm talking about.   You feel nausea, upset stomach, drowsiness and fatigue. Very bad feeling. This day, you can deal motion sickness with Relief Band for Motion Sickness. But I still choose eucalyptus oil for relief. It is like a travel aromatherapy for me. Just drop one or two on a handkerchief and smell it to cope with the nausea feeling, and sleep all the way till I reach my destination.

To soothe an aching muscular and joint, massage the eucalyptus oil on the affected area. Apart from the medicinal uses, you still can use eucalyptus oil around the houses. My friend says, he use eucalyptus oil as air freshener. He just refill an empty air freshener bottle and use it around his house for fresher air. You can use these tips I read from a website called greenlivingtips.

He shares another use of eucalyptus oil.

• General disinfectant for toilets - mix 50 ml (1.6 oz) of eucalyptus oil with a litre (quart) of water. That's it - you can store it as you would a normal disinfectant.
• Can be used neat in order to remove sticker/decal residue from glass
• Add 1-2 teaspoonfuls of eucalyptus oil to your load of washing for a fresh scent along with the anti-microbial benefits 
• Use the oil neat to help remove paint, grease and ink from clothes
• If you have a hanging car air freshener that's almost dead, reinvigorate it by adding a few drops of eucalyptus oil
• Half a teaspoon mixed with half a litre (half quart) of water makes for a good bug repellent for plants
• Use it as a stainless steel cleaner
• To use as a room air freshener, mix a quarter of a teaspoon or 15 drops of eucalyptus oil with a half teaspoon of vodka, place in an atomizer/spray bottle and add 2 cups of water.
• A good dust mite solution for the floors is boiling water and eucalyptus as well, it makes a good damp mop when the dust bunnies are breeding. It kills the mites. 

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