Hi Lee,

> 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.

Amoxicillin is the standard drug for skin infections (Staphylococcus
etc.) so that is perhaps why your dermatologist came up with this
one. Often also Tetracyclins are given against acne. The problem with
every antibiotic is that they have great influence on the intestinal
flora thereby causing a lot of problems (digstive diorders, candida
etc.) I'm also plagued with acne (comes and goes with mentsrual
cycles) but I would never take any antiibiotic.

> 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.

 I'd say it was "rearrangement" of your intestinal "goodies".

> 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.

You don't have to be afraid of bad bacteria
taking over but as your system momentarily is quite out of order I
would recommend to be careful with sweet (and dried) fruit
(candida!!) and to consider Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium
cultures.

Regards, Sylvia