Antibiotics are a common cause of disorder in the intestinal flora. Although they are actually useful and can cure serious diseases. However, they are not free of side effects. One of them is the elimination of important intestinal bacteria, which you actually urgently need. Accordingly, you may need to restore your intestinal flora after taking antibiotics.

What is the intestinal flora made of?

Your intestinal flora is a sensitive and complex network of bacteria and many other microorganisms. In an intact intestinal flora there is a balance between useful bacteria, which take over various metabolic tasks, and less useful bacteria. The latter can cause diseases – but only if they are in the majority. This can happen when something in the intestine gets mixed up.

How do antibiotics affect the intestinal flora?

The job of antibiotics is to kill bacteria. Basically, every antibiotic specializes in attacking one or more specific bacteria. However, an antibiotic never works so precisely that it attacks a single bacterial strain and leaves everyone else alone. Accordingly, antibiotic therapy always reduces the number of beneficial bacteria.

The effect is even more severe with so-called broad-spectrum antibiotics: A doctor prescribes broad-spectrum antibiotics if the exact pathogen is unknown or has already developed resistance. Since these drugs have a very broad effect, many “good” bacteria usually die in the process.

Missing intestinal bacteria – so what?

It may be hard to imagine, but if your intestine lacks some important bacteria, then nothing will run smoothly.

Numerous complaints can be the result of an imbalance in the intestinal flora after antibiotic therapy.Some examples are:

• diarrhea
• constipation
• bloating
• vitamin deficiency
• a weakened immune system
• inflammations in the intestine
• food intolerances
• psychological disorders

You see, a disturbed intestinal flora can cause discomfort all over the body.

Restore of intestinal flora after taking antibiotics

If you need to take antibiotics, it is always a good idea to give your intestinal flora a helping hand. After taking antibiotics for a short time, your intestinal flora usually regenerates itself. However, if it hasn’t been completely balanced before or if the antibiotic has drastically reduced several useful bacterial strains, the intestinal flora can have a difficult time.

Especially with the right diet you can help your intestinal flora during and after antibiotic therapy. Take as little sugar, alcohol and easily digestible carbohydrates as possible. Eat plenty of fibre, vegetables, fruit and yoghurt or kefir. This way, your good bacteria receive a lot of food.

With probiotic food supplements you can additionally support your intestines during and after taking antibiotics. In addition, this prevents you from causing more damage in the first place. Because probiotic bacterial cultures contain several bacterial strains at the same time, which are sometimes difficult to supply with food.

Restore intestinal flora with probiotic food supplements

When choosing a probiotic dietary supplement, you should pay attention to quality. After all, all urgently needed little helpers should actually arrive in the intestines. BIOMES food supplements are tailored to the individual weak points of the intestinal flora. The high-quality bacterial cultures, vitamins and minerals have been carefully selected by BIOMES scientists and are produced under the highest quality standards in Germany. They can be purchased under the brand BIOM.uniq and are recommended on the basis of the analysis of the intestinal flora with the INTEST.pro self-test.

If you are not sure if your bowel has been affected by antibiotics or if you are generally interested in how your bowel flora is doing, just test it out. BIOMES offers with INTEST.pro an intestinal analysis according to the latest biotechnological standards. Using high-throughput sequencing, scientists from BIOMES can find out in detail which bacteria live in your bowel – and how many of them. Finally, the bacteria ratio also plays a decisive role.

Based on the results, you will receive concrete recommendations on how to rebuild your intestinal flora – whether after antibiotics or not.