antibiotics

Metallic Taste – Episode 109

 in Podcasts  tagged antibiotics / flavor / medication / metallic taste / mouth / taste / taste buds by

A table covered in pennies with varying luminosity. They will add a metallic taste to your water. Ha ha!

Glossary

Aguesia: no taste

Hypoguesia: reduced ability to taste (no the same as when taste changes due to changes in ability to smell)

Dysgeusia: dysfunctional taste (bad, salty, rotten, or metallic taste).  Metallic is most common.

Causes for Change

Chemotherapy and radiation for cancer causes taste changes because the taste buds are rapid-cycling cells and the goal of chemo and radiation is to kill fast-growing cells (cancer cells are definitely fast-growing).

Head trauma or brain damage may damage the path of taste from the mouth to the brain.

Conditions like GERD, diabetes, urinary retention, and dry mouth can cause dysgeusia.  Zinc deficiencies can too (in case you can’t tell, zinc plays a big role in many processes in your mouth).

Over 250 medications can causes changes in taste.  These include blood pressure medications, antibiotics, chemotherapy, asthma medications, and lithium.  Some of them are secreted in the saliva, so the change in taste is because you actually taste the medicine.  Other changes are because the medication disrupts or alters receptor or signal transport (i.e. ion transport – sodium, calcium, potassium, or chloride).

My Own Metallic Taste

I was taking generic Biaxin, AKA clarithromycin, for a sinus infection.  Clarithromycin is in a class of medication called macrolides.  Macrolides work on infections by disrupting the DNA-copying proteins in the bacteria.  They are known as bacteriostatic antibiotics, which means they stop the bacteria from growing and dividing, but do not kill them.  This allows your own immune system to get rid of the bacteria itself.

It was the worst!  Everything tasted so bad.  I had to take it for 10 days, so I spent those 10 days eating the strongest and spiciest foods I could find to try and cover it up.

Your saliva contains clarithromycin in a concentration of ~2.72 mg/L.  To get an idea of how small this amount is, it takes you 12-24 hours to produce 1 liter of saliva.  Only 3-7% of adults report metallic taste with clarithromycin.

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Music Credits: Up In My Jam (All Of A Sudden) by – Kubbi https://soundcloud.com/kubbiCreative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported— CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b…Music provided by Audio Library https://youtu.be/tDexBj46oNI

Punctures and Cellulitis [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged antibiotics / bacteria / cellulitis / infection / puncture wound / tetanus by

Puncture Wound

A wound that is deep but a small point of entry (i.e. nail).   This allows the bacteria to get stuck inside.  Thus it won’t always bleed cuz the opening is too small for it to make it out.   So if the blood can’t get out, then antibiotic ointments can’t get in.

Signs of Infection

  • Swelling
  • Redness
  • Pain
  • Warm
  • “Lumpy” or “Dimpled”
  • Oozing
  • “Running” or “crawling” veins

Lockjaw anyone?  Tetanus is an opportunistic infection that gets into the body from dirty objects and then causes muscle rigidity (among other things).  It is very easy to prevent with a booster shot.

Cellulitis is not the same as cellulite, but does affect the same layer of the skin! It’s an infection caused by the normal bacteria that live on your skin.  As long as it’s on your skin – cool, we’re friends.  If it gets in your skin – that’s trouble.  Staph or strep – friends on the outside, enemies on the inside.  Requires oral antibiotics, and sometimes, even IV antibiotics.

Necrotizing fasciitis – bacterial infection gets so deep into the skin layers that it starts eating away the dermis and muscles below it.

Risks for Cellulitis

  • surgical sites
  • cuts and abrasions
  • puncture wounds!!!!
  • skin ulcers (from prosthetics, wheelchairs, or being bedridden)
  • spider and insect bites (bugs aren’t sterile, plus toxins – ick!)
  • cracked dry skin
  • hangnails
  • athlete’s foot (skin changes, including cracking)

Takeaway

Puncture wounds should not be treated at home – especially if you were stuck by something dirty.

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“Fluffing a Duck” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Cleaning Up Bacteria’s Mess [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged antibiotics / bacteria / infection / resistance / toxicity by

Bacteria and Antibiotics

MIC stands for Minimum Inhibitory Concentration, and is the lowest amount of antibiotic required to stop the bacteria.

Antibiotics either kill the bacteria or slow it down enough that your own immune system can get rid of it.

Antibiotics are designed to keep a certain amount of medicine in your body over a certain number of days to ensure the infection is completely gone.

Do not take antibiotics that you have left over because you most likely do not have enough medicine for a full course of treatment.

Here’s a Metaphor

Think about a spot of dirt on the floor:

Dirt + a few drops of water = mud

Dirt + a whole pitcher of water = a watery mess

Dirt + a wet rag = clean floor

Relate it to Bacteria

Infection + too little antibiotic = resistance

Infection + too much antibiotic = side effects

Infection + the right dose of antibiotic = you get better

The Take Away

The gap between the lowest effective dose and the highest, non-toxic dose is called the Therapeutic Index.  This is the information that is used to determine the dose of many medications and how they should be taken. 

That is why you should always take antibiotics exactly as directed and until they are all gone.

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