Antibiotics 101

[sdobrev]

Before I begin, Please no one bother me about pushing metronidazole or drugs or whatever. Im not selling anything.
Also, I apologize if this info is dry cause Im a nerd like that.

Im a biology major so Ive studied a good deal about antibiotics and its mechanisms.

To simplify, antibiotics work by interrupting/interfering either:
1. structure
or
2.metabolic functions of bacteria.

Metronizadole is in the class of antibiotics that interferes with nucleic acid metabolism, disrupting bacterial DNA to make it unstable.
Im thinking some people see temporary results when using metronidazole maybe because they havent used it long enough thus enabling the bacteria to develop some kind of defense mechanism to it OR just havent been completely eradicated. Another thing about metronidazole is that it seems to be very active in targeting anaerobes (not sure whether it also wipes out aerobes in the same efficacy)

For those of you who have tried tetracycline, it is a "bacteriostatic" antibiotic meaning that it is capable of inhibiting and thus limiting the growth of bacteria not necessarily killing it aka being "bacteriocidal". Tetracycline is useful for treating intracellular pathogens like chlamydiae.

Clindamycin is also another antibiotic useful against anaerobic infections.

I definitely do not think it is a good idea to just resort to an antibiotic unless you have a good case for using it because if you so happen to get some bacterial skin infection or something, you may have developed some resistant bugs that you may not have otherwise. We can blame our nation's ignorant doctors for starting that.

Ive only mentioned the antibiotics that have showed some promise in alleviating our condition. Since I think I may have H.pylori I was also looking at stuff ppl said here:
http://www.topix.com/forum/health/helic ... F1C2LDU0MQ

Has anyone heard a lot about Pylera?

[ruch]

i have gone to an oravital clinic (i started going when it was just anne bosy with her fresh breath clinic, about 7 or so years ago). it helped me at first, but it's certainly no cure. it just keeps it under better control, with fluctuations between good and bad periods. i find i have to go back every few months to get the antibiotic rinse again (used to be only once a year or so), but nowadays, i find my problem comes back (though not as badly) after i finish the 2 weeks prescription.

anyway, i cannot remember the name of the antibiotic.. but you can only get it via prescription. it is sort of powdery in liquid and comes in a brown prescription bottle whenever i get it. it's an antifungal rinse, i believe. maybe nystatin? not sure though...

(update: i think it was metronidazole/flagyl...)

i'm prescribed it for 2 weeks (rinse 3x a day). then after that, i continue with maintenance rinses (been using smartmouth 5 days a week, and chlorhexidine 2 days a week), but finding it not working very well lately (especially the smartmouth - will try something else soon). however, when on the 2 week prescription antibiotic rinse period is going on, it generally works quite well, though sometimes i get a sour taste in my mouth and it feels kind of dry in my mouth.