Antibiotics or not?

For those of you who read my last blog entry on my marathon race report, you may remember that I got sick after the race and ultimately decided to take antibiotics. Yikes, for me to say and do that must mean I was sick, as I am much more into allowing the body to heal on its own instead of taking medications. So, if you are wondering if the antibiotics worked, well the answer is ….. I don’t know.

I will say that four of the days I was on them, I felt pretty miserable and spent a lot of time sleeping. By day five, I was much better and only felt congested, but didn’t feel horrible. So, was it the sleep that helped me get better or was it the antibiotics? I really have no way of knowing for sure, however about a week later, one night I got much less sleep than normal, and I was back to feeling miserable. So that tells me that maybe just maybe, it was the sleep that made all the difference.

I’m now two-weeks post marathon and almost two-weeks after I got those antibiotics, and while I feel much better, I am still congested. If the antibiotics were as great as they say, or as people say, wouldn’t it all be gone by now? This was just another great experience in my life where I call tell family, friends, patients, “hey, I’m human” and get sick every now and then, and even actually tried to take drugs. However, in the long run I don’t think they did much at all, and its a constant reminder to myself that drugs only interfere with the body’s natural healing ability and don’t actually heal. I’ve possibly allowed myself too much stress lately and not really taken care of myself the way I should.

The body is what heals itself, providing it is free of nerve interference, given enough rest and sleep, stress levels are decreased, and fed the right nutrition. While running a marathon while sick isn’t the best thing I did, I now know even more than ever, that I’m still in a fight to feed my body the best nutrients and get adjusted everyday to allow myself to heal. Stay tuned….