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There is no simple answer. What had caused my weight loss?
And why did antibiotics help it while I was taking them but I would
begin to decline when they were stopped? I would like to say it
was 'X' caused by 'Y', but the reality is all I have is a fist full
of theories based on guesses. Before the doctor who helped me,
Betsey, left the state, here's the theory we came up with...
When I had walking pneumonia in the Spring of Nineteen Eighty-Four,
it was treated with a strong course of antibiotics. Now
we know that when antibiotics are taken, they often damage the
balance of intestinal flora that we all have. By 'flora' I
mean the community of bacteria that live in our guts and help keep
'bad' bacteria from taking hold while helping us to digest and absorb
the food that we eat. So as I experienced my first strange health
symptoms in the Summer of that same year, the guess is that the
course of antibiotics for my walking pneumonia had caused an
imbalance with those little bacteria in my intestines. This resulted
in issues impacting which nutrients I could absorb as the years
continued.
Of this imbalance, I had likely become allergic to a strain of
'normal' intestinal bacteria that we otherwise all have. I say this
based on the fact that what I had, and caused me so much trouble,
didn't seem to spread to those around me. Otherwise many of my
friends would have been suffering from unexplained weight loss as
well and bathroom bouts. As it was only me, then the reason it
affected me and not my friends was because there was something unique
to me involved in the problem. Given my now known catalog of
allergies and intolerances to other common things in peoples' lives,
it seems most likely in retrospect that I had become allergic to one
or more strains of benign intestinal flora.
Next, this strain I was allergic to loved simple sugars such as
fructose, in the most common form of corn syrup, as when I had them I
would have a worse reaction in my gut. Is it possible that when I
drank a corn syrup soda within a few hours the bacteria I was
allergic too soaked it up and multiplied in my intestines to the
point that it was plentiful enough for me to have that allergic
reaction to it? The first symptoms of it being an escalating blood
pressure and a sudden headache? And when the level of that bacteria
had grown too large for my body to handle, it would flush it out
through those painful bathroom bouts? One thing I can confirm here
is that, while on the antibiotics, I could eat all the fructose and
corn syrup I wanted to without ill effect. So much so that I
became a huge pie fan during the early nineteen nineties!
Yet, once I knew I needed to avoid corn syrup and other sources of
fructose such as fruit in the late nineteen eighties, why was I still
having bathroom bouts? As it turns out, even table sugar has some
fructose in it, though it is mostly sucrose a more complex sugar that
many if not most bacteria can't use. So over the course of a few
days, the bacteria I was allergic to would still get a small bit of
fructose and slowly grow until three or four days later there
was enough in my gut to cause the allergic reaction and result in
another one of my prolonged bathroom bouts. Further, while I had
been avoiding food with corn syrup as one of its main ingredients, I
hadn't realized that it could still be in processed foods as its
tenth or fiftieth additive. Once my full brain power returned, I
realized this and made sure to avoid even these minor amounts of corn
syrup laced food less they feed my intestinal problems.
With this theory of 'an intestinal bacteria I was allergic to', it
nicely explains why the initial dose of oral antibiotics I had gotten
from the joint doctor seemed to help, while the injection of
penicillin didn't. But then, why hadn't the two courses of oral
antibiotics I had received from the emergency room in the first few
months of Nineteen Eighty-Nine not helped me? Had they been of
too low a dose to effect the flora I was allergic too? Or had they
been prescribed for too short a period to effect it? Or had I
actually felt a little bit better at the time, but assumed it was
just a periodic fluctuation in my condition that soon dissipated once
those few days of antibiotics were finished? I did experience
that switching me from Cephalexin for one month to Anaprox had
reduced my improvement for that month. Could it simply be a case
of the Cephalexin worked against the particular strain of bacteria I
was having the bad reaction to while the Anaprox had less of an
impact on it? Could it also have been a case that the two short
batches of antibiotics I had gotten in early Nineteen Eighty-Nine had
also been of a type that didn't affect the bacteria?
It would have been nice to have had these questions answered so I
could then spend the rest of my days letting medical professionals
know I was allergic to flora 'X' and thus needed to make sure I kept
it out of my gut. Instead I'm stuck with the story of how, after
years of weight loss and suffering, taking a long course of
antibiotics cured it. What was it? They'd
ask. I dunno, the but theory is...
Now in this era, there is scientific evidence that an imbalance of
intestinal flora between twins can cause one to lose weight &
have intestinal problems while his or her sibling is doing fine on
the same diet. Further, doctors now know to have their patients take
a course of probiotics after a course of heavy oral antibiotics to
insure their intestinal tract is quickly restored to an appropriate
balance of flora.
In the past, it was easier for doctors to label someone as
mentally ill rather than face the possibility that there was a
medical condition that they didn't understand or know how to treat.
Remember when impotence
was a psychological problem?
Not any more. Remember
when stomach
ulcers were a
physical manifestation of too much psychological stress in someone's
life?
Now we know ulcers are caused by harmful bacteria and sometimes too
much of a type of medication. But back then these conditions were
simply labeled a 'psychological condition' and those patients
discarded by the medical profession because those doctors didn't want
to admit they hadn't a clue.
Actually, perhaps that tactic is still in use today...
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