Is it OK to Eat Yogurt While Taking Antibiotics?

Amoxicillin, specifically.

TIA

Yep.

I ate yogurt while taking amoxicillin and I didn’t notice any bad changes. I think it actually helped me as it seemed that amoxicillin stripped me of my good bacteria as well as the bad, it was really harsh stuff.

I’m not a doctor and all that jazz.

When I was a kid my pediatrician used to recommend it, including frozen yogurt.

I just went through a month of treatment with Amoxicillin, and the doctor recommended that I eat yogurt at the same time. To counteract the side effects of the antibiotic tending to kill off all the good bacteria in the gut – digestive upsets & diarrhea. And it helped.

But it has to be ‘live culture’ yogurt to work.

TMI warning - I find it’s pretty necessary to prevent thrush.

Some time ago, I found one site that suggested that although it was a Good idea, it was best to not take the pill within minutes of eating the yogurt, to try to space them out a bit. But it is quite possible the reasons were either to protect the “live cultures” or that some antibiotics should not be taken with milk.

IANAD…but, generally it is recommended when you’re on antibiotics. Live culture yogurt can help replenish the good bacteria in your gut and elsewhere. That will help prevent diarrhea, gas, thrush and yeast infections.

Even better than yogurt,

Kefir!

I like it better than yogurt, it’s lower in calories, and you can find it made without the damn corn syrup.

Lots more live cultures of more strains than yogurt. I gulp about 6 oz down with my vitamins.

You can also just buy probiotics in pill form.

A little backround.

Although bacteria and fungi don’t have much in common on a cellular level, they do like to set up shop on the same real estate. So much so that fungi evolved chemical weapons to give it an advantage, that’s where most of our antibiotics come from, we borrowed them from the fungi.

Sooo, when you take an antibiotic, you…
1 kill off the pathogenic bacteria, this is the ‘desired’ effect
2 kill off lots of neutral or beneficial bacteria, this is a ‘side’ effect, which in turn
3 opens up lots of real estate for fungi like candida albicans to proliferate and give you thrush and yeast infections.

recharging your gut with neutral/beneficial bacteria is widely thought to reduce 2 and 3, although I don’t have a cite.

SeaDragon, do you have any cites on Kefir that list the live cultures? I did a quick Googls search, none of the cites I checked have that info. I take Acidophilus in pill form with my vitiams; and eat Dannon’s Activia yogurt at coffee, which contains Bifidus Regularis. Kefir might make a nice addition or swich in my diet. I’ll have to check out my local health food stores.

I am a happy camper since I started ingesting plenty of live cultures. Amoung the many benefits, my internal hemorrhoids seem to have disapeared!