Most antibiotics enter the blood and circulated throughout the body. One antibiotic does not enter the blood and only reaches the gut. This antibiotic requires bile acid to become activated, restricting it to the gut. What is this wonder drug?

Rifaximin is a non-systemic antibiotics that resulted in improvement or remission in IBS. This antibiotic inhibits a broad spectrum of bacteria in the bile-rich small bowel and susceptible bacteria in the aqueous colon, and alters microbial virulence and epithelial cell function. The different mechanisms of action of rifaximin potentially explain the use of the drug in widely varied diseases and syndromes. For Crohn’s Disease, it has resulted in 69% remission and for ulcerative colitis, 76% remission. It is being trialed for IBS with significant success.

Rifaximin resulted in 70% of patients with abnormal lactulose breath test becoming normal. Since the mechanism to keep it in the gut depends on the presence of bile acids, taking Bishop Weed (Ajwain Seeds) to increase bile acids seems appropriate. Lastly, studies found that Rifaximin lowered the viability and virulence of the bacteria even though they developed resistance to the compound.

Why should we consider it for CFS and FM? The answer is simple, up to 90% of CFS and FM patients have IBS. It is very likely that all three have a common cause with variations. The common cause is altered microfloras. The variation of symptoms is caused by the unique bacteria/microflora that each person has.

(c) 2012 Ken Lassesen