antibiotics Tag Archive
Great Expectations
Apr 9, 2012Posted By: jaclynUnder: Health Comment
When you have a common infection such as a cold, or when your child is sick do you go to the doctor expecting a prescription? Or, do you go to find out if you need one? Believe it or not, your expectations influence whether or not you will receive a prescription for antibiotics.
Let’s take look at the common cold. Colds make us feel terrible, causing sore throat, sneezing, stuffy/runny nose and cough. Even worse, they can last for up to 2 weeks with a dry cough possibly lasting longer. Adults get an average of 3 colds per year, while children have an average of 7. No one likes to be sick or have a sick child and many people head to the doctor’s office looking to be cured with a prescription for an antibiotic. The problem is, antibiotics kill bacteria and the common cold is caused by viruses. Therefore, antibiotics will not cure the common cold. In fact, instead of making you feel better they can cause side effects like stomach upset and diarrhea and can make you feel worse. Antibiotics can also cause serious side effects such as tendon rupture in extremely rare cases. If you are thinking to yourself, that can’t be true because the last time I got a cold I took antibiotics and they made me feel better. The truth is the antibiotics didn’t make you feel better, you would have felt better without them. By the time you went to the doctor, you had probably already had the cold for 3 days, and your pharmacist told you that the antibiotics wouldn’t star...
