Antibiotics the Ducktape Of Mainstream Medical

You’re lucky today reader I have another James rant. I’ve been kicking this idea around for a while but recent event’s brought it to the surface and it’s time to vent. Today’s rant is brought to you by the incompetence of the medical industry in general and one in particular. I have a friend that was feeling sick and decided to go to the new walk in clinic that opened down the street. At first I was fairly impressed, the wait to get in was very short, the total time in their was short, the staff was nice. When she got out I asked what it was she had. It turns out that the doctor didn’t bother to diagnosis her at all. A guess of it might be strep throat was made and a prescription for antibiotics was made. This is what kicked off my anger, the lazy attitude from medical “professionals” and the over eagerness to simply throw antibiotics at any problem. Now lets get down to ranting.

Antibiotics have been available since the 1940’s but have recently become way overused. A CDC study from 2010 found that for a population of about 309 million 258 million courses of antibiotics were prescribed. I can assume not every person in America got a prescription, I know I didn’t, so that means some are getting more than one course per year.

Antibiotics kill bacteria without discretion. With the human body being composed of a mix of human cells and bacteria cells, with the bacteria outnumbering the human ones 10-1, that doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. Our bodies have evolved to co-exist with the bacteria over thousands of years with antibiotics only appearing recently. We are still learning about the effects of killing off that bacteria. New studies onto the effects of killing off the gut bacteria in particular are showing links to allergies, asthma and weight gain. Another issue coming out is the Antibiotic resistant bacteria such as MRSA which either aren’t effected by antibiotics or need ever stronger ones. I can tell you first hand that MRSA sucks. During a camping trip I got a bug bite that I scratched at. The MRSA  that  was under my finger nails infected that bite and turned into a MRSA boil. It took weeks to heal and I felt like shit the entire time. Also I had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics for it, which I stopped taking and healed up anyway. So there’s another reason not to scratch bug bites.

The human body does a great job of healing itself, if you just let it. I don’t completely write them, antibiotics, off and have some stored. I do tend to think of them as an absolute last resort not a first choice. In fact I’m now leaning even more towards the sentiment of trying to avoid them at all cost. Unless I have gangrene I really don’t want them. I don’t think taking the equivalent of a bomb to treat the sniffles makes any damn sense. I’m going to avoid them and try to get back some healthy gut flora. I spoke with YouTube star Patriot Nurse about this and she said “You can out-sprint Nature, but it always wins the marathon”. While you may heal whatever you have for right now you are destroying your long term health. Instant gratification over working hard and having a good future. Sounds like a lot of people I know.