I. A WOMAN IS VICTIMIZED
Mrs. Kovacs had been suffering from
diarrhea and abdominal pains for four days already. Her family thought that it was just an ordinary bout of stomach flu, until the 40-year old woman complained of feeling very weak. That was the only time the family admitted her into the hospital, where Mrs. Kovacs’ surgeon had her abdominal area x-rayed and CT scanned. His findings? An extremely thickened large intestine/ colon that has ballooned in size due to swelling. He also ran her through other lab tests, and her white blood cell count turned up an alarming number: 25,000, when the normal range is only 4000-11,000. She was clearly suffering from a serious bacterial infection, but from where?
II. THE DANGER OF
ANTIBIOTICS The surgeon soon had his answer. Mr. Kovacs reported that his wife had taken the antibiotic
clindamycin some three weeks ago. Clindamycin has been blamed for raising the risk for a dangerous ailment of the large intestine—
pseudomembranous colitis (where the affected colon’s inflamed tissues looked like a greenish miasma). Although the
Antibiotic is important for the treatment of bacterial infections, it also disrupts the delicate balance of intestinal bacteria. This is because it doesn’t choose which bacteria to destroy; whether it is aerobic (needs oxygen) or anaerobic, good or bad, it annihilates them all.
But it is unable to annihilate “Clostridium difficile,” the anaerobic bacteria that cause pseudomembranous colitis. Without the good bacteria, the population of the bad ones can grow unchecked. People infected with “C. difficile” sometimes remain healthy, but there are those who get symptoms ranging from mild diarrhea to what doctors call toxic megacolon, which is similar to Mrs. Kovacs’ condition. But it is not just clindamycin that is known to increase the risk for pseudomembranous colitis. Caphalosporins, penicillins, and even flouroquinolones disturb the balance of intestinal bacteria.
So next time you pop that antibiotic, think twice. It may do you more harm than good. In Ms. Kovacs’ case, her colon infection led to her death. Even after her surgeon and his team went to drastic efforts of removing her colon and some parts of her small intestines, her system still crashed. As a rule of thumb, do not take antibiotics without a doctor’s prescription. Ailments like the common cold and flu are caused by viruses (read: nonliving). Thus, antibiotics are practically useless to treat viral infections. But if you do have to take an antibiotic for a bacterial infection, ask about all possible side effects, and take the meds (according to the prescribed dosage) for the specified number of days only (usually 7-10 days).