Antibiotic Therapy

An anonymous comment on my last blog post referred me to http://www.roadback.org/ for information about antibiotic therapy for autoimmune diseases.

Here are some of my impressions after looking at the website:

• The general website appears to give very helpful information for those whose particular problems are related to rheumatoid arthritis and scleroderma. If I had either of those problems, I would most certainly try this therapy.
• I counted the diseases on all of the patient testimonials back to 2002. I only found two that were classified as “fibromyalgia” and both cases were young teen females.
• The site's educational article on Fibromyalgia is titled “Fibromyalgia- is there an infectious connection?” It poses the question, but it doesn’t answer it. www.roadback.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/studies.display/display_id/135.html

The web site says: “This therapy is not a cure; it is, however, a highly effective treatment.” My translation is, “Just like every other thing you do for your fibromyalgia from taking hot morning showers to swallowing any other medication, it lasts temporarily and does not cause you to get over your fibromyalgia.”

Further searches on the web revealed that “Drugs known to exacerbate lupus or increase the risk of allergic reactions in people with lupus, include some antibiotics (sulfa, tetracycline).” There were also a couple of speculative articles about the possibility that antibiotics had actually caused lupus in some cases.

So, the bottom line is that the road back website doesn’t even claim that antibiotics are the cure for fibromyalgia. It might be a valid treatment. I certainly can’t pronounce any real judgment on it without trying it.

However, based on my research I have decided not to try it.

My ability to cope with fibromyalgia is based on lifestyle choices that “line up” with each other. The pieces of my lifestyle are all pulling my health in the same direction, like the draw of a compass needle. Taking long-term antibiotics would run counter to the flow. Antibiotics could kill off all the good bacteria in my body and allow yeast to flourish.

I’m doing well with my lifestyle approach. For my situation, antibiotic therapy seems like a real risk for not much chance of gain.

Whatever therapy you consider for treating your fibromyalgia, I hope that you research it carefully and make the decisions that are best for you.