Antibiotics are wonderful medicines.
Antibiotics are commonly prescribed to fight bacterial infections, but they also have a dark side. About one in three people who take antibiotics develop diarrhoea. The symptoms usually start on the last day or two of antibiotic therapy, or a day or so after it, the regime had been completed.
Any antibiotic can cause you to have diarrhoea, whether taken orally or by injection, but broad-spectrum antibiotics — antibiotics that kill a wide range of bacteria — are the most likely to affect individuals.
Most of the time, diarrhoea, as an antibiotics side effect is mild, with two to four loose stools per day, lasting for a couple days. In most cases, it will stop on its own or when the intake of the medicine is stopped, without treatment. But antibiotic-associated diarrhoea can make some people very sick. Its most severe form, called C. difficile colitis, can be life threatening.
In some elderly or ill patients, diarrhoea can lead to serious complications such as dehydration, a perforated colon (hole in the colon wall), or toxic megacolon, in which the colon becomes distended and could rupture.
Thousands of species of bacteria, yeast, and other micro-organisms live on the skin, in the intestines, and on other body surfaces. They’re known as the “normal flora” and they contribute to good health. Bacteria in the gut, for example, help break down food. But some of the bacteria that normally inhabit the intestinal tract are potentially dangerous.
When the balance in the normal flora in the intestine is not maintained, perhaps, because of an illness, medications or other factors, this allows bad intestinal bacteria that are resistant to the antibiotic to increase. The result is often loose, watery stools known as antibiotic-associated diarrhoea. Antibiotics work by destroying bacteria that cause infections, but they also kill good, or helpful, bacteria in the intestinal system.
Consuming food items rich in probiotics such as yogurt, uncooked cheese (wara), fermented soy products, fermented cabbage and water extract of fermented maize gruel (called omikan in Yoruba), along with antibiotics offers an excellent option for dealing with the diarrhoea caused by antibiotic use. Probiotics are live bacteria, yeast, and other microbes that can keep the delicate microbial balance in the intestines of individuals who take antibiotics.
Source:tribune
