Avoiding antibiotics for Chronic respiratory infections: pros and cons

For many years I've struggled with the choice of when to avoid antibiotics and what situations warrant their use. As a person with chronic lung infections related to cystic fibrosis, antibiotics have saved my life countless times, but in the last few years I've become dependent on them to function normally. Without antibiotics to control my chronic lung infections (MRSA and Pseudomonas), I often feel debilitating fatigue, get a daily fever, and cough lots and lots of mucus. While I've found many natural remedies over the years to reduce my infections, improve my immune system, and strengthen my overall health and digestion, the severity of my infections is such that I cannot avoid antibiotics completely. In general, there are no natural remedies that I know of that match the power of pharmaceutical antibiotics for use in many bacterial infections - and trust me, I've looked!

As a result of my experiences both with conventional pharmaceuticals and natural medicine, my opinions about antibiotics have changed over the years. In the beginning of my healing journey and experimentation with natural medicines, I viewed antibiotics with skepticism and tried to avoid them as often as possible. I made the personal choice to suffer through many months of infection, fatigue, and heavy mucus loads in order to minimize my exposure to this class of drugs. I did this for two major reasons: minimizing the risk of developing antibiotic resistance, and mitigating the impact that excessive use of antibiotics has on the gut microbiome. For about four years, I chose to wait as long as possible between hospitalizations, and do without oral antibiotics for longer and longer periods of time.

Upon reflection, I think avoiding antibiotics as often as I did was a mistake, and I wouldn't recommend people do what I did. I lost lung function during that period and developed some serious and irreversible lung damage. It's not clear whether or not this damage would have developed anyway, even if I had taken more antibiotics. I now believe that the cost-benefit analysis weighs out in favor of using antibiotics when appropriate. In the last year or so I have changed tactics and my health has benefited. Here, I will describe my experiences and review why I made these changes.

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