That One Time I Got Addicted to Antibiotics

My body is under attack and my phagocytes don’t know what to do about it. Honestly they have been thoroughly useless to me since the 1980’s. At even the first glimpse of a harmful infection they pack up, move out of town or huddle together in a corner whimpering. It’s ridiculous!

Then one day my doctor prescribed me a bottle of penicillin. They arrived like the royal cavalry ready for war. A few days into battle and I felt like my old self again skipping through the trees.

The next time I was sick (almost always a sinus infection) I wanted so badly to mouth the word “penicillin” as my doctor was making his diagnosis. “Bed rest and some herbal tea will do put some honey and lemon in it.” Blast! “Here do you want a chewing gum?” Don’t mind if I do.

My father was always opposed to the antibiotics. A man of peace he believed like Gandhi in the sit and wait it out approach. I never nearly had the patience! I want to be cured now.

Each time I’ve had a sinus infection, as I do now, it feels like death. The lack of smells, lack of taste, head feels like you’ve been sipping on helium, body feels like you were run over by a truck.

My mother always believed in taking me straight to the doctor, whatever he says we’ll do. I secretly prayed for notes to keep me home from school. Barely ever got them, psh.

Over the years I’ve taken amoxicillin, penicillin, zithromax, bioxin, just to name a few. I’ve been on the most common of antibiotics to the hardcore warriors that are in for serious business.

All the while I never really thought of them as harmful or bad. I just thought of them as give give, me, me, want, want.

Then I started discovering the real harm they can do to you in the long run. It turns out antibiotics love to wipe out bacteria in your body but they disregard whether these bacteria are the good guys or the bad guys. You see we have these good bacteria called Microflora in our intestines that do lots of work helping us digest our food. These good little Microflora (even their name sounds pretty) are savagely and brutally attacked by these antibiotic warriors thus leaving your gut to fend for itself.

Another thing that antibiotics do is kill off the bacteria so that next time there is a war the bacteria that arrive are like ninja warriors classically trained ready to give your body a sever whooping. When you ask your doc for the penicillin it won’t work because these ninjas have seen them before and they know penicillin’s game plan. So you’ll have to move to something stronger and stronger after that.

It took me years to learn all this and only now are my father’s words ringing true.

I have yet another sinus infection and I’m sitting here in misery with a nasal spray in one hand and a prescription for amoxicillin in the other.

But I think I’m going to atleast try to go this one alone. And those phagocytes better get in gear.