This may be particularly important to you for practical reasons, but also if you have certain health conditions.
This article explains why antibiotics cause diarrhea and which ones are most likely to cause it.
It also discusses howtaking probiotics along with antibioticscan help to prevent antibiotic-associated diarrhea.
Marko Geber / Getty Images
Why Antibiotics Cause Diarrhea
Your body harbors friendly bacteria on your skin and throughout your digestive tract.
For the most part, these bacteria are beneficial, assisting in digesting and processing nutrients from food.
They also provide a barrier to overgrowth or infection by bacteria that may cause illness.
Verywell / Emily Roberts
That alters the way your intestine handles nutrients and fluids.
It also changes its motility, or the way it contracts to move material through.
When that happens, many people develop diarrhea.
In a minority of those people,C.
difficilemay begin to multiply and take over the colon after a course of antibiotics.
This can, unfortunately, result inC. diff-associated diarrhea (also called pseudomembranous colitis).
In rare cases, this may also be associated withtoxic megacolon, which is a life-threatening surgical emergency.
Antibiotics Most Likely to Cause Diarrhea
While any antibiotic can result in either mild diarrhea orC.
difficilecolitis, some have a higher risk of doing so than others.
difficileinfection for adults and children on antibiotic treatment.
difficilecan reasonably choose to forgo probiotics altogether.
The specific strains conditionally recommended by the AGA for prevention ofC.
difficilein antibiotic-treated adults and children are:
Talk to your healthcare provider before starting probiotics or any other supplements.
Also note that probiotics supplements are not regulated with the same rigor as medications.
U.S. National Library of Medicine: MedlinePlus.Antibiotics.
2019;1(1):CD011825.
doi:10.1002/14651858.CD011825.pub2
Harvard Health Publishing.Antibiotic-associated diarrhea.
Abad CLR, Safdar N.A review ofClostridioides difficileinfection and antibiotic-associated diarrhea.Gastroenterol Clin North Am.
2013;57(5):2326-32.
2017;12:CD006095.
2016;22(3):10781087. doi:10.3748/wjg.v22.i3.1078
