by Dr. Bill Rawls
Posted 6/3/19

In this video, Dr. Bill Rawls tackles one of the most common questions he gets asked: Can I take herbs while I’m on antibiotics? He explains the differences between synthetic antibiotics and natural antimicrobial herbs, and the potential benefits of using them together. Read all about Dr. Rawls’ natural approach and herbal protocol for overcoming chronic Lyme disease here.

Video Transcript

Question: Can I Take Herbs While I’m On Antibiotics?

Hello everyone, Dr. Rawls here with an answer to a very common question that people have been asking lately: Can you take herbs with antibiotics?

The answer is yes, absolutely. There’s no reason why you can’t take herbs along with antibiotics, the two work very, very differently.

Antibiotics are single synthetic chemicals that affect a bacteria in a very specific way.
Herbs are a wide spectrum of chemicals that are being produced by a plant that affect a variety of different microbes — bacteria, protozoa, viruses. So herbs are more suppressive, they’re not nearly as potent as an antibiotic. It’s really apples and oranges, it’s not the same thing.

Herbs can be used in conjunction. In fact, there may be some advantages. If you are on an antibiotic, there may be advantages to taking herbs.

We know that the herbs do a really nice job of balancing gut flora that have been disrupted by antibiotics. So if you’re taking the herb along with the antibiotic, it may be — now there’s no scientific proof of this — it may be that herbs can help balance the gut flora and counteract some of the negative effects of the antibiotics.

Now, all that being said, do you have to take antibiotics with herbs? I don’t think that’s necessarily the case at all. In my personal recovery and with most of the patients that I’ve worked with over the years, people find that the herbs are quite adequate. And long-term use of herbal therapy suppresses these specific kinds of microbes that we find to be associated with Lyme disease and other related chronic illnesses. So most of the time the herbs are satisfactory.

In some cases though, some people may have a more virulent microbe that isn’t responding to the herbs, or their immune system isn’t strong enough for the herbs to allow them to do it. Sometimes the addition of antibiotics can be beneficial. But, most of the time people can get by with just herbs alone.

So, I hope that helps answer that question. Take care.

Dr. Rawls is a physician who overcame Lyme disease through natural herbal therapy. You can learn more about Lyme disease in Dr. Rawls’ new best selling book, Unlocking Lyme. You can also learn about Dr. Rawls’ personal journey in overcoming Lyme disease and fibromyalgia in his popular blog post, My Chronic Lyme Journey.