I thought I would start a post dedicated to tracking antibiotic use prior to FFA diagnosis. I reviewed recent comments and counted up ten of us that have been on several rounds of antibiotics prior to our FFA diagnosis! I suspect there are more. By having this post it will catch the eye of those members that don't visit this site that often and hopefully they can add their background too.

The working theory is that these broad spectrum antibiotics wipe out the good bacteria in the gut, namely those good guys that help provide immunity. This is why diarrhea is often a side effect of these antibiotics. I want to add that the tetracyclines that many of us are on are generally not as intense with gastrointestinal side effects and likely are not the culprit. I don't want everyone panicking and stopping the treatments their dermatologists have recommended!

This is more of an attempt to gather information and I intend to bring this to a CARF support group meeting in Boston at the end of this month. I have never been to one, being such a newbie in all of this, but from what I understand Dr. Lynne Goldberg usually attends these meetings.

I thought we could list the name of the antibiotic, length of the course, the infection being treated, and the length of time prior to FFA diagnosis (or when we first started noticing symptoms). I noticed Jen mentioned that she was on Omeprazole, an acid reducer, two months prior to noticing her hair loss. Perhaps we could include that class of drugs as well, since they also alter the normal flora in the gut.

I called my pharmacy yesterday to confirm the drug names and dates. In December 2011 I was on Amoxicillin for 10 days and immediately after that Augmentin for 10 more days to treat a middle ear infection. For six months after that I suffered from chronic yeast infections. The following fall 2012 (approximately 10 months after antibiotic use) I noticed my eyebrows thinning but chalked it up to aging. They were very thick and full so it likely was happening for a while before I noticed. I was diagnosed with FFA on February 25 2014, a date unfortunately that I will never forget. : (

The following article was just posted days ago and theorizes that perhaps the antibiotic in conjunction with the infection could precede autoimmune disease. It is rather technical, but the nurse nerd in me loves reading these things!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140331153520.htm