First off I just want to quickly introduce myself for those who don’t know me! I’m Marissa, and I help women with cystic acne clear their skin naturally and gain confidence! I struggled with cystic acne for years and have dealt with really deep acne scarring (which is mostly gone, but I’m still on my journey to completely healing them). You can find all sorts of acne & health information within my blog!
Now, let’s get into this post!
Acne is a symptom, so in order to truly heal your acne, the root cause(s) must be addressed.
Treating acne by taking antibiotics doesn’t address the root cause, and has negative effects on your health, as I will talk about now.
The negative effects of taking antibiotics for acne
Antibiotics kill both good and bad bacteria in our gut, and they can diminish populations of good bacteria. This is not good because good bacteria is essential for great health. In fact, without good bacteria, people wouldn’t be able to digest food and absorb nutrients.
Our gut heath is super important because it plays a role in:
- balancing hormones
- producing vitamin K
- balancing moods
- protecting you from pathogens & disease
- absorbing nutrients
Fun fact: 70-80% of each person’s immune system is in their gut! Can you believe it? That’s why it’s SO important to keep our gut healthy!
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Antibiotic Resistance
Another downside is that taking antibiotics regularly can lead to antibiotic resistance, which happens when bacteria recognizes and is able to defend against the antibiotic. When it comes to treating patients with antibiotic resistant infections, it costs more than $5 billion each year in the United States.1 As well, due to antibiotic resistance, people in the US are spending 8 million more days in the hospital than they would have if they didn’t have antibiotic resistance.2 These statistics were from a few years ago, but are still relevant and quite shocking.
So, while taking antibiotics may help you achieve results with clearing your acne, this is a short-term solution, not a long-term solution. Through taking the antibiotics you are messing with your gut flora over time, and if you end up with an unhealthy gut, it can contribute to numerous different health conditions, including acne. This is why antibiotics are a short-term, not a long-term solution for acne.
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I myself do have an experience with taking antibiotics, but it was not for my acne. In September of 2016 I got 2 of my wisdom teeth taken out, and I was told I needed to take an antibiotic to help prevent any possible infections where my teeth were taken out. After 2 or 3 days, I noticed I had no active breakouts; my skin was clear except for scarring. I then experienced for myself that antibiotics surely do help clear acne, but I was still determined to stop taking them asap because I was aware of the negative effects of antibiotics, as I soon was about to experience.
(WARNING, this may be TMI for you!) After 5 days or so, I was experiencing liquid diarrhea that wouldn’t go away, so I knew something was wrong. Even just taking antibiotics for maybe 6 or 7 days (I don’t remember how long I was supposed to take them for) messed up my gut flora and left me with a really unhealthy gut at the time.
So, I have firsthand experience with the negative effects of taking antibiotics (I believe the antibiotic I was prescribed was clindamycin). Please, please think twice before deciding to take antibiotics for your acne! Your future self will thank you for it! By clearing you acne holistically instead, not only will you get long-term results, but your overall health will flourish as well!
I hope this post was insightful! Comment below if you’d like me to write a post about healing an unhealthy gut.
Have an amazing day!
Love,
Marissa
Sources:
1-2. http://www.center4research.org/antibiotics-riskier-others-know-quinolones/
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