<< I also read that E. Coli is harmless, but are you sure it is "needed"?
 By the way, because of the antibiotics administered to non-organically farmed
 animals, new strains of E. Coli develop, and may be more harmful than the old
 ones. >>

Hi all!  All this talk of antibiotics and intestinal bacteria has made me
nervous, so I wonder if anyone could offer their thoughts.  To treat facial
acne, my dermatologist prescribed 500 mg of amoxicillin three times a day.
This seems like an excessive amount to me, as people take this drug short-term
for ear infections and such, and I have been taking it for over 4 months now.
Prescribing amoxicillin was a trial and error process, with the doctor like
"Okay, try this and see if it works....No?  Try this more powerful drug and
see if it works....etc."   I asked him "Well, isn't there anything else I can
do besides drugs?"  And his response was "Nope, your hormones are just screwed
up, nothing you can do about it besides drugs."  (hmph!  sadly typical)

Anyway, this week, as part of my "healthier me" resolution, I have started a
80% raw diet, and am going to work my way up to 95%+ raw.  I completely
stopped taking the amoxicillin when I started the raw food diet, and of course
my face has begun to break out, as I expected during this detox period.  Of
course, it was probably all the toxins and my bad diet that was causing my
face to break out in the first place, so I figure now I'll treat the cause
instead of the symptoms with a raw food diet.

But I was just wondering, now that I've stopped taking the antibiotic, might I
have a problem with "bad" intestinal fauna taking over and making me ill, or
do you think the mostly raw diet should do the trick and keep them in check (I
did sorta taper off the drug)?  I was just wondering if anyone had any
thoughts, suggestions, or experience for my situation.

Thanks!    Lee