You'll find a list of all my blog posts in the blog archive.

Herbal antibiotics

Submitted by Blog - Henriette on 20 September, 2005 - 10:00
Blog categories: 
Holistics

Don't mess around with herbal antibiotics if you have septicemia.

Every so often somebody asks: "What herbal antibiotic is best for (insert trouble here)?"

People who ask such questions need some common sense.

If you just have a sniffle, shrug. Do whatever you like, most anything that'll help your immune system will work.

If you have syphilis, gonorrhea, tuberculosis (TBC) or any of the other killers from about a century ago, don't do herbal antibiotics - go for the real thing. Ditto for tooth infections that develop into real blood poisoning (septicaemia). Ditto for throat infections that go on to infect (and inflame) your heart.
If you have an inflamed wound with the telltale red streaks do whatever you like, but know that this, too, can kill you.

None of those should be handled with the "let's try this one, perhaps it'll work" approach.

All of those are potentially life-threatening, and if not that, very probably severely crippling - and for whatsitscalled type of TBC at least, you'll be infecting pretty much everybody around you, all the time, while you cough your lungs out.

There's a reason those were killers before we had antibiotics. Believe me, the eclectics knew their herbs and would have eradicated those -- if they could have.

Comments

Submitted by Christine (not verified) on 24 September, 2005 - 18:41.

I used echinacea tablets and slippery elm once for a tooth abcess, alongside the antibiotics. The dentist was very impressed, he said he'd never seen one clear up that quickly or so cleanly.

Submitted by Henriette on 26 September, 2005 - 19:35.

Cool!

Submitted by laurie (not verified) on 5 December, 2006 - 00:00.

I need to have some dental work done, but because of a congential heart valve defect (which has never bothered me and I did not even know about until recently), I have been told to take antibiotics before any dental work. I hate the idea of that and is there any herbal substitute for amoxicillin like oregano oil or something I can take instead?

Thanks

Submitted by Henriette on 5 December, 2006 - 10:28.

You could ask your dentist for the numbers: how many people with your heart defect get heart trouble after dental work, vs. how many people who do antibiotics get heart trouble after dental work.

If bacteria make it into the bloodstream of the teeth, which is likely in dental work, they've already circumvented all of our defenses.
So if you like the idea of having to wheeze ever after, if a bacteria decides to take off and hits your heart, go for anything but antibiotics.