I'm taking antibiotics (Anelox) for a gnarly lower respiratory tract infection and I'm having some pretty intense stomach pains/cramps. I'm curious as to how antibiotics work?

How antibiotics work

Antibiotics often cause diarrhea. You could take some Pepto or Dr Fowler’s.

While @lilikoi‘s link is right in that an antibiotic is anything that kills bacteria, different ones do work different ways once you get more specific than just general “antibiotics.” Do you mean Avalox? That is moxifloxacin hydrochloride. It’s really broad-spectrum (kills many kinds of bacteria) since it works by inhibiting DNA gyrase, an enzyme which is needed for DNA replication (gyrase unwinds DNA helices). No DNA replication, no bacterial reproduction, which leads to no infection!

Eat yogurt with the digestive tract stuff in it. Antibiotics kill off the good bacteria in your intestinal tract.

Eat yogurt with live active cultures. I can’t tell you why it helps, but it does. Feel better!

jinx. :)

Acidophelous. <sp?> i take it every time i’m on antibiotics. the antibiotics kill everything in you, including the “good” bacteria in your gut. the active cultures return the good bacteria. minimizes the runs.

in lieu of that, as was said earlier, yogurt or kefier.

Antibiotics are the microbial equivalent of nerve gas: they’re indiscriminate. They’ll wipe out all bacteria in their path, including the ones that help you to process food, and food that you can’t process doesn’t sit well, I guess. @Likeradar‘s live active culture yogurt will replace some of the bacteria.

Thanks, jellies.

It’s best to take them before or after, not within two hours of taking the actual antibiotic. Just fyi. I personally make a smoothie and drink them because I find probiotic yogurt to be so plain even flavored.

((hugs)) hope you feel better!

You say “pretty intense stomach pains/cramps”... I would call your doctor on that one.

The “pretty intense” thing sends up a “call your doc” flag for me.

If the antibiotic is not one that you can tolerate, there are others. There is some really good advice in this thread about how to tolerate the antibiotics.