Posted on 10/26/2013 10:13:54 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
When my daughter was 3 months old she got her first ear infection. Antibiotics. Three days off of them and she got another one. More antibiotics. This went on for more than a year and a half.
For the last year the drs put her on prophylactic antibiotics. Bloody diarrhea, yeast infections, fungal skin rashes. She’s already had two ruptured ear drums and her hearing was impaired.
I was 21 years old and this was before the internet was a ‘thing’. I trusted the drs.
Until she got thrush so bad that they said it was going to kill her and wanted to do a DNC.
By this time I’d been told about tubes in the ears. I asked the dr if I understood the situation clearly.
“She has chronic ear infections. We’re keeping her on antibiotics to prevent them. But the antibiotics are causing fungal infections and now you’re telling me that my 21 month old needs a DNC and is probably already sterile. Would it not be a better solution to treat the yeast, take her off the antibiotics, and get her the tubes ASAP?”
The dr agreed that this was preferable. Then he went on to tell me that there were only one American dr in Germany who did the tubes for military families, he only did two a month, and there was a 18 month waiting list. So we couldn’t take her off the antibiotics until then. The dr informed us that TriCare wouldn’t pay for the procedure unless this dr did it.
I called every family member and friend that we had and asked for money, gathered up all the credit cards and had the companies extend the limits, then flew my daughter back to the states to get her tubes. A pediatric ENT took pity on us and got her in just a couple of days after we landed. We went broke, but we paid for the surgery ourselves.
She didn’t have antibiotics again until she was six and contracted antibiotic resistant strep from her school. That was in 1998. She ended up hospitalized with the ‘drug of last resort’ then getting her tonsils out. That strain of strep was not bred in her body, but in her classmates.
In my experience, the drs of the ‘80s and ‘90s were passing this crap out like candy. I agree that there are pushy parents, but the ultimate liability falls on the professional’s shoulders.
When my grandfather was growing up people said the motorcar would never replace the horse-drawn carriage.
I recognize there are cases out there like yours. Sadly, those are not the only cases where kids are over-medicated.
Sorry to hear about the ordeal your child and your family went through. What a challenge...
Mexicans have been taking anti-biotics for the common cold almost as long as anti-biotics have been around.
We had a happy ending. Turned out that the hearing loss was due to her middle ear being stuffed with hardened crap. As soon as that was all cleared out, she could hear again.
Other happy ending... She’s 29 weeks pregnant with our first granddaughter. :)
I’m just saying that the patients didn’t have years of medical training or access to medical information 20 years ago and the drs did. Rather than take the time to sit down and inform the parent/patient of the realities of the situation, drs would toss them antibiotics to shut ‘em up and get them out the door.
I also think that it’s safe to say that the medical professionals didn’t understand that we’d be out of antibiotics 20 years ago and didn’t see any harm in what they were doing.
In the 90’s, everyone assumed that new antibiotics would be developed, so the trend continued.
It’s not right to blame the public for things that even the drs weren’t aware of. And it’s not right to blame the patients for something that a drs did.
As I’ve been told a hundred times, “Who do you think you are? You’re not a doctor. Did you go to medical school? Go sit in the corner and color.”
(Not an exact quote, but pretty much the attitude.)
Hydrogen Peroxide is the best killer of MRSA that I know of.
You mention some things I know to be true. I have also heard the physician side, and they are under the gun by moms who simply will not take no for an answer.
Granted you could argue they should refuse, but that emphatic mom is going to find the physician who will give them what they want. It’s a no win for them when mom then runs around town telling her inner circle what a terrible physician they are.
And yet physicians refuse pain patients opioids every day. They insist that patients do physical therapy before surgery. They talk patients out of unnecessary tests.
Another thing that I’d like to bring up is the question, *why* are mothers so insistant that their kids get antibiotics with every sniffle.
Day cares and schools have a rule that a kid must be 24 hours free of fever before they can go back to school. If the school calls and the parent has to pick them up, the kids can’t go back the next day. Mothers are under pressure to get their kid well, and do it fast, so they can continue to go to work. Single moms without family support are in serious trouble in that regard. (You have no idea how many times I’ve heard mothers guiltily confess that they’ll dope the kid up with Tylenol right before school, praying that the kid makes it through the day.)
In Texas, a kid is turned over the truant officer, even if they have doctors notes. The district looses money if the kids aren’t attending. (I had to fight that with my diabetic son.)
So we’ve got several dysfunctions colliding at once. Moms who have to work, a school system that will call the cops if a kid misses too much school, doctors who don’t want to argue or educate, drug companies who aren’t working on antibiotics because there’s not enough money in it, twenty years of physicians not knowing about the resistance issue until it was too late, insurance companies throwing up roadblocks to see specialists to get procedures that would end the need for antibiotics in patients.
Let’s not forget that the rise of the AIDS epidemic has contributed significantly to the problem.
And then there’s the practice of treating all livestock with antibiotics, even when they’re healthy.
Blaming nagging moms alone is shortsighted and unfair.
Lots of twists and turns to this.
To start with, the real problem is that people assumed that if you had an infection, you could just “turn it off” with antibiotics. While this is what happens in a Petri dish, the reality in many cases is that the antibiotic just reduces the degree of the infection long enough for the immune system to eliminate it.
Antibiotics are not the only thing that does this. Several ionic metals may not kill bacteria very much directly, but they inhibit the bacteria’s reproduction. Since most bacteria normally reproduce every half hour, this accomplishes the same goal of reducing the degree of the infection.
Hygiene does matter, as does having a healthy intestinal flora. Medicines that existed before antibiotics, like the sulfa drugs, still exist.
Some plants contain chemicals that make at risk cells too slippery for the bacteria to grab a hold of.
We got rid of antibac products a couple of years ago. My kids get dirty and probably eat some of that dirt. We try to avoid the doc for the common cold and flu (which happens rarely), and focus on building our immune systems. I did have to break down and get antibiotics for a severe case of mastitis last week. Now I’m popping probiotics like crazy.
If you need a candy fix try Unreal. I get it at Target. It’s free of all of those things. We eat it sparingly as it is still candy, but I don’t have to worry about my kids bouncing off the walls. They make a Snickers type bar, M&Ms type candies, and Reese’s style peanut butter cups.
Marie, if you want to get your pants in a twist over this, go right ahead. The facts as I related them are true.
Yes there are other problems too. Who knew?
Get lost.
wow.
I was having an informed debate and wasn’t even a little bit upset with you. I didn’t read any hostility in your tone or intent at all until you blew your cork.
Pop a Valium. It’s called a ‘conversation’. If you don’t like it, YOU walk away and get lost.
False claims to stop the manufacturing of antobiotics so they can finally have thier pandemic
Yeah wow...
Now we’re supposed to morph the topic to pain killers.
What’s up with that Marie?
Now you’re even advocating I self-medicate. I guess that’s how you must live your life. I don’t.
A conversation? No, it’s called denial.
Who frequents this forum? Physicians mostly? No! It’s moms and pops and grand-parents. So which person is the primary caregiver in most instances, and who will it help most by addressing the problem they can have a direct hand in preventing?
Any guesses? Obviously not...
1. I’m not ‘morphing the topic to painkillers’. No more than I’m ‘morphing the topic to physical therapy’. I was pointing out that physicians have the power to determine treatment and, in many areas, they actively do. Freely. But G-d forbid a mom ask for antibiotics... Then they’re weak, unprofessional, helpless people who can’t have a reasonable conversation with a mother? Sheesh.
2. Where did I ever advocate that anyone self medicate? In what way? HOW? If I ever said such a thing, please point it out so that I can apologize, because I don’t believe that. (I take it back. A couple of years ago I did admit that I self-medicated with animal antibiotics one time in highschool because we didn’t have insurance. I believe that I also said that I DID NOT RECOMMEND IT. Oh, and I gave myself stitches that same year.)
3. So you’re saying that you’re going to refuse to admit that the ‘forceful mom’ is actually the least of the causes of the antibiotic resistance problem in an effort to educate the poor idiots on FR who might read this thread? I hate to point this out to you, but FReepers have been all over this antibiotic issue long before the MSM got on top of it. We’re not idiots.
What's your silver bullet for chronic bronchitis?
FYI, I don’t think there are any vaccines for dengue fever. It is carried by a mosquito, which has to bite a sufferer and then quickly bite a healthy person, a lot like malaria. But with dengue, a sufferer must treat the symptoms and hope for the best as the disease “runs its course.” Good food, clean water and plenty of rest are the best ways to treat dengue. And if you do happen to develop dengue, as my husband did, be prepared for extreme depression to set in. It takes around 6 months for all of the symptoms to disappear.
What’s helped my family is... silver. Colloidal silver. (And no, we don’t use it daily and we don’t ingest enough to turn us blue. That’s stupid.) We only use it when we’re ill in an effort to avoid another round of antibiotics. (Last resort thing.) I think I only used it once last year and didn’t use it at all the year before.
We also go for the garlic, olive leaf extract, and vitamin D.
I had chronic bronchitis for years and it turned out to be from sinus deformities. (Drainage from chronic sinus infections was getting into my lungs.) I had sinus surgery to restructure the bone and I’ve been so much healthier.
I’d try to figure out why the chronic bronchitis is happening in the first place. (allergies, undiagnosed asthma, smoking, immunity problems... there could be a lot of things.) A good dr can help you figure out the root of the problem, if there is one.
Consider it population control just like banning DDT.
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