Devastating Tetracycline Side Effects That Shattered My Gut & Gums Years Later

Devastating Tetracycline Side Effects That Shattered My Gut & Gums Years Later

Hey there Becoming Natural fans! Hope you are having a great week. Today I wanted to address a lesson I have learned over the years just so I can impart they gravity of what we choose to put in our bodies and give you an example of the long term issues you might have and not even know it.

I have mentioned in multiple podcasts the battle I have had with bleeding gums, Candida, among many other GI symptoms. Over the years, I have learned through my research that many of my symptoms are also symptoms of the use of Tetracycline, an antibiotic that was commonly used by dermatologists when I was a teen. And an antibiotic that I took off and on for several years as a preventative measure for my complexion. Now I had breakouts. I'm not saying I had beautiful skin, but I did not have acne, so it was really preventative for me. And I really don't think that this is a go to treatment anymore for dermatologists. But when I was in high school all my friends were on tetracycline and we didn't even know you had to take them every single day, or I would go on and then I would go off. We had never heard of probiotics before. I firmly believe that all of that on and off use of Tetracyclines caused a lot of damage to my stomach. That's when I had my first stomach pain that I felt like I needed heartburn medication. I had my first yeast infection, and I got super puffy. I hate my high school pictures. I was an athlete. I played tennis seven days a week. There was no reason that I should have Looked as bad as I did. But all of that, in hindsight, was the Candida yeast overgrowth beginning that I didn't even discover for 15 years when I did the massive Candida diet. Yeast makes you look puffy, just like yeast does with bread. That imbalance in my gut caused by the antibiotics was the beginning of a very long haul that I am still paying the price for. I got progressively worse thru college and graduate school to having my first emergent surgery when I was 24. And ironically, I was always treated like a unicorn by each doctor I saw. My crohns is NOT in my colon, where it typically is found. My colon has always been healthy. My crohns was located in my stomach. For years, I stumped all my doctors because none of the crohns meds worked for me….because the pills were created to release in the colon and were bypassing my stomach. So it makes perfect sense that the Tetracyclines initiated the inflammation which led to the actual disease in my stomach and ultimately, my stomach was so inflamed it was swollen shut and I couldn’t even drink water without vomiting. It was brutal.

There are studies linking Tetracycline use to Crohn’s Disease as it strips the lining of your stomach as well as bleeding gums, graying of your tooth enamel and bone loss of your teeth.

While I have managed to decrease the bleeding of my gums, over the last couple years, my gums have been receding and my dentist has become more concerned for the long term health of my teeth. I have always been really good at managing my teeth so it has been so discouraging that every time I go to the dentist now instead of my usual Aa+ report, I have more concerns than praises. I had an appointment last week with a periodontist. Periodontists are the gum and bone experts. They focus on the tissues that support your teeth.

When I was in the hospital after getting my stomach removed and then getting septic, I clenched my teeth really bad. And when I clenched my teeth really bad, I cracked my bottom two molars. That was where I held my stress when I was in pain or just having stressful procedures. And from all that clenching, I cracked my back 2 bottom molars. It took about a year for me to recover from my surgeries and to finally address my teeth. When I saw my dentist, I had to get 2 crowns, which was a horrible appt for the location of the crowns and keeping my mouth open. My dentist actually stopped and said he felt so bad for me that he wanted to put me out. And on a completely unrelated note, I mentioned to him that I was a hard stick (my veins were terrible by then) so instead of an IV, I had to take an oral anesthesia pill. That kinda scared me a little. I just sat there in the chair waiting to go out. I didn’t even know you could do that!

Ultimately, after all of that, one of the crowns failed a few years later And at that point I had to get one root canal. Which now I know everybody says, root canals are bad. I don't know why I haven't gone down that rabbit hole yet, but I'm a little nervous because I have a root canal. So I go to the dentist all the time. I am fanatical about my teeth. I floss every single night. I probably brush my teeth, if not three times a day, sometimes more. I always have a toothpick with me because I'm always worried about food getting stuck in my teeth as I age, and also because my gums are receding.

Initially, I did relate my increasing issues with my teeth and gums back to when I was septic because just at that time I was on 10 IV antibiotics at once. It was a doozy. But as I mentioned before, I have read more and more about this link between Tetracycline and many of my issues, including oral health. That includes Minocycline, Doxycycline…they are all Tetracyclines.

So, my teeth have gotten progressively worse. Just my gum health and my teeth have always been clear. I don't know if you know this, but as I've moved to different cities and I have gone to a new dentist, the minute I sit down, they're like, oh, you've taken tetracycline. And I'm like, how? How do you know this? Well, tetracycline, it kind of makes the white of your teeth become transparent. I would say translucent. But if I get up close to a mirror, I can wiggle my tongue behind my teeth and I can see my tongue through my teeth like they're not opaque. And that is a common problem I know with tetracycline, maybe general antibiotics? I'm not sure. I've always been very worried about that. And always reading up on how to make my teeth better, how to make my teeth stronger, I'm neurotic. I go to my six month Visits on the dot. I love going to get my teeth cleaned. I am everything about teeth health. So, um, after that root canalI've been kind of investigating what's going on while I continue to get recession. And no matter what I do, every time I go, I have another report that I need to work on something.

I had an appointment last week with a periodontist. Periodontists are the gum and bone experts. They focus on the tissues that support your teeth. It Took me a year to make that appointment because I was just irritated because, I always talk about how I've had gum bleeding, but I've actually kind of squelched that by different things that I do homeopathically to keep my gums from bleeding. BUT My gums are still inflamed, and I definitely have receding gums. The periodontist was awesome. I really liked him. But he kept saying I'm so encouraged. You know, you're here at the right time. He said he has a plan, but I'm still going to a periodontist because my gums are not good. I shouldn't be going to a periodontist. Of course asked all the questions. I'm sure he was thinking “Oh she’s that patient” but I told him I want to treat as much naturally as I can and that I’ve been trying to do better things for myself without taking the medication, especially knowing the medication for something else 35 years ago got me here. I even admitted my vice of a Coke a day. I put it all out there in truth. He told me my Coke was OK….I actually got approval! (He did say DON’T drink energy drinks because its like putting battery acid on your teeth) He said you are the textbook example of the patients that I see that have a history of long term tetracycline use. Full circle here, tetracycline disrupts, the microbiome in your mouth, which makes sense. Just like we mess up the microbiome in our gut. So we take probiotics, right. But guess what. They don't they don't break down in your mouth. So there was a period of time there where I I had some probiotics that I sucked on that were supposed to help the microbiome in your mouth. And he said, good try. you're on the right path. But basically these are just the effects of using the tetracycline.

I've never been angry about any of my health issues as bad as it was. Anger has never been an emotion. But now I'm angry. I'm just ticked off that tetracycline has been the gift that keeps on giving throughout my entire life. It's caused so much heartache between me and my family and pain and all the things. And I firmly believe that Tetracycline initiated all of it. Maybe I have a bad gene, but it certainly jumpstarted the autoimmune issues. I have other other opinions on that too, but I never. I always had a hunch about the tetracycline, and so I've never taken my kids to the dermatologist just because I knew that that was always the default, in my opinion, to go to an oral antibiotic to help them clear up their skin. So I've always looked for natural things that have worked for my kids, so they've never been to a dermatologist. I just want to share with the world that the overuse of antibiotics, which we didn't know at the time, is so destructive. I don't blame my dermatologist, but it just goes to show that medicine is really, really great. Antibiotics saved my life. But we don't always know what we're taking. We don't know if it's safe for the long term use. We don't know even though we think we know. And you don't find out that you don't know until 30 years later, when you have all these other problems in your body. And who would have thought that taking an antibiotic would cause so much grief. The stomach kind of makes sense because that's where the pill and goes. But then my teeth and my gums and the periodontist was talking about the health of the bones in my teeth is weak. And he kept saying “this is classic tetracycline use.” I want to share this because I don't know that everybody's putting this together. I don't know that even dentists are putting this together with potential gut issues as well. This guy was amazing and obviously a specialist. So he sees all the worst case scenarios like me, and he sees patients like me all day long, every day. So he knows. And so when I, when I shared about the Candida issues that I had in that diet and how crazy it was, and I know I'm such an extreme case, but it's basically, you know, our medical model teaches us to specialize and break our body down into tiny parts which is amazing for certain things. But really, many of our symptoms are all related. I laugh because I had an itch on my foot that wouldn't go away. Never going to go to the doctor for that. Never going to tell the doctor that because what's he going to do? That went away when I did the Candida diet. And, you know, I have chronic sinus headaches, but I have no drainage, and I've never had allergies in my life. That's candida. all the things that were going on with me, including all the gut things, went away when I did this yeast diet. So all of these symptoms were completely related. And what I know now, because now I'm getting certified as an integrative health practitioner, it’s all about the gut. It's all about healing our gut. You always hear people say there's this gut brain connection. Oh, it's massive. It's a huge connection. You have to have a healthy gut in order to heal your body. Because what happens in your gut is your cells separate a little bit, and you get what's called leaky gut, where it's kind of trendy. Everybody talks about leaky gut these days, but when you get leaky gut, those cells are separating. And so it's allowing the toxins and the things that are in our stomach to leak through our gut and out into our bloodstream. So then when it's in your bloodstream, it becomes systemic. And it's not just isolated to your gut. And so then what happens? We get autoimmune diseases because it's affecting and going into all of our organs and all of our body. So if we can repair or prevent those leaky junctions, we can start healing with time, not overnight. With time, the issues in our gut, which can ultimately help reduce our symptoms and hopefully, hopefully long term, a lot of the things that go on with our bodies.

I want to shout it from the mountaintops this link of antibiotic use/overuse and the pros because there are pros, but then the cons and when we shouldn't be using them. I know as a mom, I my kids were babies and you want them not to cry. And for sinus infections and ear infections and my kids got antibiotics. They could be facing the same thing as me. One of my sons in particular has asthma and allergies and had so many antibiotics for ear infections. I'm just irritated that this one medication that I didn't even need to take has been connected by more than one doctor to being the root of all my issues.

I remember seeing a functional medicine doctor for the first time, and she was going down the list of all my symptoms and all the things, and I said, I have Crohn's. And she was the first doctor that said, but why do you have Crohn's? And I said, Well, nobody's ever asked me that. It always stops At Crohn’s. You have autoimmune disease that's just expected and now expect 15 more autoimmune diseases to come along with that. I want to stop that cycle. I want to stop it. And I have I really have. I was diagnosed with Sjogren's, although I've never had symptoms. But she was the first person who said, why do you have Crohn's? She said that her opinion is that she can relate most autoimmune diseases back to either Lyme disease or a mold toxicity. but I'm also going to say this bacterial imbalance could be a major cause this disruption in our microbiome causes so many more issues. That may not be right now. They may be when you're 50. Hello 50 here I am so I am far better than I was when I was 40. I am way healthier. I don't take medication, but I am dealing with the ramifications of not medications for Crohn's yet because I took all those too. But Im dealing with the ramifications of the dadgum antibiotics that I took for my complexion that I didn't need to take when I was in high school. I don’t know how long I took them, but it was only in high school, yet they have plagued my body for life. I want to pass that little food for thought out there, not only to help possibly connect the dots for anyone else out there, but also for your kiddos. Just be careful what you put in their bodies to treat them. I've certainly made many mistakes for myself and unknowingly for my kids. Nobody does that intentionally. if that's something that you took, and if you have symptoms or if you have issues, maybe they are all connected and maybe, maybe you can help yourself as well by figuring those things out. Maybe you can help your child as well. We have to learn to look at the whole body and not relagate complaints of symptoms to one doctor for this and another for that. I want to be able to help people. I want to be able to use my experiences to help other people get through their stuff too, because I just think that we're learning so much more and our eyes are being opened to toxins and pesticides, and even when you try to be healthy, it's a pain in the butt. You have to like, read every single label and you have to know what's in your food or what pesticides were on your food or if an ingredient is a hormone disruptor or the list goes on. All the things. And it's so incredibly frustrating because not everybody wants to take that time. I don't, and I enjoy it. I just want to help anybody who might be experiencing similar issues, but mine date back to high school. 16 years old just from taking that one antibiotic that I didn't really need to take. And it's caused a lifetime of heartache. I am happy to to tell people what I've learned and researched, because I don't want anybody to have to go through that. It's been a whole lifetime of lessons. And apparently the lessons are still coming.

I will continue to dig in and see how I can help myself and my teeth. Maybe there is a way to stop the madness and reverse the damage done thus far. Im still digging and learning. Just be cognizant. We, myself included, tend to trust to easily…things we shouldn’t trust. Studies are fallible, studies are “tweaked” and it is absolutely a necessity for me to know the long term, VERY long term side effects before I will take a medication. I have made many mistakes because I was desperate. And we’ve been taught to trust a system that we are learning doesn’t put the patient first all the time. Not only does this apply to any medication we take, this is but one example. Its anything we put in our bodies…including my Coke and dyes and preservatives. It is a dirty world my friends. It’s overwhelming, often discouraging. But if we just keep plugging away, learning from past mistakes and making simple adjustments to our daily life, we will always be improving. Small improvements over time add up and small improvements are far better than none or worse yet, doing more harm to our bodies by not changing the things we know to change.

Have a great day my friends! Always reach out!