ParsleyHealth.com is considered ?functional medicine? which has its roots in the approach established by Dr. Mark Hyman to look at the body as one whole connected system and identify root causes to chronic illnesses. Much of today?s modern medicine revolves around the idea that practitioners focus on certain isolated systems (cardio, gastrointestinal, urology, etc). Functional medicine looks at all of it together and generally focuses on natural ways to heal (diet, supplements, hormonal balance, lifestyle).
I?m not too familiar with homeopathy (both are considered ?alternative medicine?). It they may also understand gut heath is linked to body alignment.
I?m honestly considering to look into Ayurvedic medicine as well (Ancient traditional medicine from India). I?m pretty desperate at this point to get my life back.
In regards to gut health vs. antibiotics, it?s well known that when taking strong antibiotics, or taking them from a very long / extended duration, they can wipe out your guy?s microbiome including the beneficial flora inside. Many beneficial flora are important for things like vitamin / nutrient absorption and manufacturing your neuro transmitters. Losing those key processes can lead to imbalance, chronic illness, or other issues like depression / anxiety / fatigue.
The part I am not sure of is the link between gut health and chronic infection. They may be two independent issues, or there may be a direct link between gut health and the immune system as well. A poor gut may also lead to a compromised immune system. A compromised immune system along with a chronic infection may be operating at sub-standard performance, as it is focusing all healing resources on fighting the infection and nothing else.
In my own case, I noticed POIS develop after several issues happened all at once:
* food poisoning that led to a dose of strong broad-spectrum antibiotics (bactrim)
* abruptly stopping omeprazole after a decade of use (proton pump inhibitor) that likely changed my gut flora and / or histamine receptors (related to Nanna1?s evaluation of histamine receptors and the POIS cascade)
* radically changing my diet to a much cleaner diet
* pretty bad 6 month run of dangerous edging sessions to pornography (3 hours at a time). I?m recently thinking that the constant blood pressure change may have also caused ?balloon damage? to some of my veins. A CT Scan from July had notes that I have an ?engorged IVC and hepatic veins?. There is a comment somewhere on this forum from Nanna1 that talks about balloon damage to blood vessels, and how it could up-regulate a1a receptors, which leads to the POIS cascade (sorry I am on my phone and can?t find it to source it). This alone could have caused my POIS problem.
Because some of these things seem so unrelated, it?s very hard to pinpoint my own reasons for developing POIS. But along with POIS, I?ve developed a whole slew of other problems including anxiety, depression, a clinical diagnosis of bipolar disorder (never used to be this way), ADD concentration problems, and a run-away ?fight or flight? response that happens with triggers like alcohol, too much caffeine, and too much sugar, to name a few. I think high histamine foods are also a trigger now (like pork). Perhaps I?ve always had some of these problems and they were masked / controlled through pornography addiction and / or poor diet. Perhaps many of them manifested because I am going through withdrawal symptoms of stopping porn and resetting my neurotransmitter levels.
Anyway - in your case, if the only factor that set everything off was taking antibiotics, then it?s likely the antibiotics changed your gut flora for the worst. Supplementing with the right probiotics, diet, and lifestyle (and perhaps the enemas) might actually be a cure for you over time?
A question would be - why did you take the antibiotics in the first place?
Illness is usually triggered by chronic stress. There may have been other factors leading up to POIS as well that caused the cascade to start happening.
