Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives NSD and diet-related; Dr's visit

I went to my GP last week and I explained to him more about the diet. He promotes this type of a diet but from a different point of view. As far as he is concerned he thinks that starches by nature are inflammitory. He seems to believe it has more to do with your blood sugar rising quickly when you eat starches and then falling quickly. Anyway he says we do not need starch in our diets at all. He says we have only been eating starch for the last 5000 years and the million years before that we only ate protein and vegatation and our bodies are not good at processing starch. So that is his theory , not the bacteria theory. So I asked him for antibiotic and he wouldn't give me cipro but gave me minocycline 50mg from the tetracycline family instead. He gave me one month's supply. He also suggested taking acidophilus with it. So I was wondering ........

1. Do I take this antibiotic daily for 1 month? Will it work even if it is not cipro?

2. Do I take the acidophilus at the same time or after the one month of antibiotic?
How much acidophilus per day?

I thank you in advance for any suggestions on this matter.




Deborah

Hi, Deborah:

Your doctor sounds like a smart guy. If the minocycline is manufactured by Lederle, it may be mildly effective for you; otherwise I would expect it to do nothing at all. The acidophilus is to offset the bad effects from taking the antibiotic, so take them at different times of day (suggest antibiotic early mornings well before breakfast, and acidophilus well after lunch or with dinner). The dosage of L. acidophilus is not very critical because in a healthy tract they will propagate by the millions, but the right substrates must be present and many suggest using FOS (fructoogilosaccarides or something like that), which can be a bad thing when trying to eliminate Kp as they grow on it, also. Twenty to fifty million organisms daily to start is good, if the doses are measured this way (it might be 5mg-20mg with some filler--make certain that it is starch-free).

The calcium you should be supplementing with should not be taken with the antibiotic, but at night with plenty of magnesium, zinc, and selenium; the vitamins still with meals during the day.

Best of luck, and please let us know how you are doing after a few weeks,
John

Thank you John for your help. I will take the antibiotic in the morning and the acidophilus with lunch or dinner. The antibiotic container doesn't say who manufactured it. So guess I'll just have to hope it is the right one. Yes my dr is a very smart guy. He is not a conventional dr and is open to new ideas and getting to the bottom of things. I will let you know in a couple of weeks if this is working for me. Thanks again. By the way you are pretty smart yourself.

Deborah

Deborah,
With regards to the minocycline..check out the website www.theroadback.com for a detailed protocol of the use of minocycline in treating rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, psoriatic arthritis.........It should be very helpful and explain to you why you are taking the anitbiotic. I can tell you here however that Dr. Thomas Brown's protocol, the one mentioned above, does not call for taking the antibiotic everyday but rather every Mon,Wed, and Friday for example, alternate days.......
The reasons for this type of alternating days are explained. There is also an excellent book called "Rheumatoid Arthritis: The Infection Connection" that discusses the uses of antibiotics in treating arthritis. I cannot remember who the author is but i will find out for you.

I have been taking minocycline (100 mg) off and on for 1.5 years now and it has helped. However, i find that it is more beneficial the more i follow the NSD/LSD diet which i have also been doing more on/ less off for about 2 years. I still take NSAIDS but have cut the dose down by probably 60%.

Best of luck.

Aloha,
Matt

Deborah,
One more thing..this type of antibiotic treatment does take some time to work. Dont expect to take a weeks worth of the minocycline and notice drastic changes. It is gradual in its effect but Dr. Thomas Brown and Dr. Mercola (see www.mercola.com) have treated 1000's of arthritic patients successfully with the minocycline regimen.

aloha,
Matt


Aloha,
Matt

Sorry, last post......
correction on that website: www.roadback.org

Aloha,
Matt

Great you have a Doc who can think.
Most tetracycline family treatments i've seen recommend mino daily at a certain rate as well as doxy at another rate, one day a week only. I took a few courses of doxy (common for malaria alleviation), with slight success only, but i'm not 100% comfortable with the idea.
Acidopholus could best be eaten at times other than before or immediately after the antibiotic. As well as the direct contact in the GIT, the antibiotic is systemic so daily continued probiotics is best. As i've said (probably too many times) sauerkraut is also a good source and so is kefir - which does not need to be dairy based. A lot of salting, pickling and preserving processes do not kill the useful bugs. The yeasted processes have other issues, not just alcohol....

Ted
"Auto-immunity or self-help - no decision"

Deborah,

I have no experience of antibiotics or acidophilus - John (Dragonslayer) is the expert on the former - but just to comment on what your doc said. He is right in saying we do not digest starch very well, and it is precisely because it is not all digested that it goes on to feed the bacteria. So what he says is consistent with the 'bacteria theory', as is his prescribing you an antibiotic; I think you have a doc on our wavelength.



sublata causa tollitur effectus as we say

Hi all,

Why is everybody spending money on healthy gut flora supplements (=expensive supplement!) when after administration there is no food available for the poor creatures. After all, we are on a starch-free diet to starve the Kp, but we're starving the rest of the species as well.

So as I see it, the supplemented bacteria will die off very soon due to a lack of starch.
Anyone who can explain the usefulness of this procedure?

Otherwise, congratulations with this doc, I wish I had one like that. I think both factors, gut flora and insulin-sensitivity are contributing to AS.

Arjan

Good one Arjan; I have read that the make up of our intestinal flora is determined in infancy, and though we can temporarily change it with supplements it will return to base. There is always some undigested food that will exit the small intestine and the bacteria that feed on it perform a useful function in synthesising some vitamins, but like you I don't see the point of taking extra orally.

sublata causa tollitur effectus as we say