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How To Know If I Need Antibiotics For Sinus Infection
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When you feel sick, with a sore throat, runny nose or fever, you want nothing more than to feel better.
But while you may be tempted to ask your doctor for a prescription for antibiotics, that’s not always the best course of action. Overuse of antibiotics contributes to more antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which is a serious problem that could mean a future where none of our antibiotics work anymore. If and when that happens, people could die from simple infections.
Even more relevant to a person who feels sick, antibiotics don’t help if you’re fighting a virus and may even make you feel worse by eliminating good bacteria from your stomach.
To help clear up any confusion, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention created the simple table below to help people understand whether they should talk to a doctor about antibiotics or simply opt for bed rest and fluids. Please note that this only covers a selection of common complaints; Always consult your doctor if you have a high fever or any other serious or mysterious symptoms.
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You may wonder if it’s enough for doctors to understand the chart above. After all, they are the ones who have the recipe books. But patients may not realize their power.
“Patient expectations can lead to inappropriate prescribing,” a team of researchers wrote in an essay for The Conversation last year. “Studies show that doctors often write prescriptions based on their beliefs about what patients expect.”
Furthermore, researchers found, in a study conducted in an inner-city emergency room, even among patients who know that antibiotics don’t work against viruses, many would still opt to take them for what is likely a viral infection.
This is largely because taking an antibiotic when you most likely have something viral is generally considered risk-free: it probably won’t help, but it won’t hurt either.
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The problem, the researchers point out, is that this perspective is wrong. It can hurt. In addition to the growing global threat of antibiotic resistance, there are also personal risks. Antibiotics can stimulate secondary infections and cause unpleasant side effects such as acid reflux and yeast infections.
Of course, if your doctor thinks you need antibiotics, you should listen to him. But if you have a mild sore throat and runny nose, don’t ask your doctor for medicine. Instead, plan to stay home from work, drink tea all day, and get plenty of sleep. Not so bad, right?
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Look: We’re finally getting a better idea of the story driving the next LEGO video game, and it looks fantastic. Do you think a good dose of antibiotics will get you out of a cold, flu, or COVID-19? Think again. Antibiotics, when prescribed and taken correctly, can usually kill bacteria but are useless against viruses like COVID-19 and the flu.
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Bacteria are unicellular microorganisms present everywhere: in the air, soil and water, on plants and animals, even in humans. Most bacteria, including those in our intestines, are harmless. Some actually help by digesting food and destroying disease-causing microbes, according to the Mayo Clinic, which notes that fewer than 1 percent of bacteria cause disease in people.
The bacteria can cause infections such as strep throat, tuberculosis, and urinary tract infections. They are generally treatable with antibiotics.
Viruses are smaller than bacteria and require a living host to survive. A virus attaches to cells and usually reprograms them to replicate. Furthermore, unlike bacteria, most viruses cause disease. Some illnesses caused by viruses include COVID-19, the common cold, AIDS, herpes, and chickenpox. Viral infections first require vaccinations to prevent them – such as those against polio or COVID-19 – or antiviral drugs to treat them. Often the only treatment is to let the disease run its course.
Antibiotics can treat diagnosed bacterial infections and save lives, but they are powerless against viruses like those that cause colds, flu and COVID-19. Antibiotics, while an important therapeutic tool, can also cause side effects, and their unnecessary use has contributed to antibiotic resistance, meaning that bacteria are developing the ability to defeat the antibiotics designed to kill them. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that at least 28% of courses of antibiotics prescribed each year in U.S. doctors’ offices and emergency departments are unnecessary. Antibiotics can treat bacterial infections such as strep throat, whooping cough, and urinary tract infections, and life-threatening conditions such as sepsis. But the CDC also notes that antibiotics are not necessarily necessary for many sinus infections and some ear infections since they usually get better on their own.
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Most viral infections tend to clear up on their own without treatment, so the overall goal is to provide relief from symptoms such as pain, fever, and cough. However, some viral infections can be treated with antiviral drugs, developed largely in response to the AIDS pandemic. These drugs do not destroy a virus but help prevent it from multiplying in the body. Antivirals are available to treat some illnesses such as COVID-19, influenza, and shingles.
Viruses and bacteria are complicated. Not only can they cause similar symptoms, but many diseases, such as pneumonia, meningitis, and diarrhea, can be caused by a virus or bacteria.
Your doctor can often diagnose you through a medical history and physical exam. Your doctor may swab your nose, as is done in COVID-19 tests, or your throat, as is done for strep throat. Depending on your symptoms, you may need blood or urine tests or a spinal culture to detect a viral or bacterial infection.
The internet is full of advice on how to ease the symptoms of a cold, flu, or mild case of COVID-19. Generally, some of the easiest ways to manage symptoms at home include:
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Hydrate – Be sure to drink plenty of fluids, such as water, juice, and warm soups, to prevent dehydration. Avoid sugary drinks.
Medication: Typically, you won’t need anything other than bed rest and fluids. You may also want to consider an over-the-counter pain reliever to reduce some of the muscle pain associated with these conditions. Imagine a world where a seemingly trivial infection, such as a urinary tract infection or a sore throat, leads to a deadly effect. prognosis.
This sad existence could be our reality in the not too distant future. That’s because some bacteria are resistant to the antibiotics we use to treat infections, making once-powerful drugs ineffective.
And the overprescription of antibiotics has accelerated the rate at which bacteria are becoming resistant to every known treatment. At this rate, ten million people could die every year from antibiotic-resistant infections by 2050.
Do I Need Antibiotics?
If you haven’t heard about this global health threat yet, it’s time to pay attention. Read on to learn more about antibiotic resistance and what we can do to try to change the trajectory of the future.
The discovery of penicillin, the world’s first antibiotic, marked a moment of transition for modern medicine. This new “miracle” drug, discovered by accident, has provided doctors with the ability to cure many deadly infections. Antibiotics have been helping people recover ever since.
In addition to the increasing use of antibiotics, the medical world has witnessed an increasing number of infections that have developed resistance to antibiotics. This occurs when bacteria adapt to resist the drugs we use to fight them.
Germs (bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc.) adapt through genetic mutation to survive. The more germs are exposed to drugs, the greater the chance that a genetic mutation will occur that allows survival against that drug. These surviving germs multiply, filling the world with even more resistant germs.
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And unfortunately for us, the discovery of new antibiotics is outpaced by the rate at which antibiotic-resistant infections are growing. We can’t keep up, which is why every year more and more people die from drug-resistant infectious diseases.
Of course, sometimes antibiotics are still the best way to fight certain types of infections. Effective use of antibiotics includes:
Many bacterial sinus and ear infections do not require antibiotics. In these cases, your doctor will choose to let your body heal on its own.
Antibiotics only help the body fight bacteria, and viral infections are not caused by bacteria. This means that antibiotics will not cure viral upper respiratory infections, such as colds, flu and, yes, COVID-19. This is because they are viral infections, not bacterial. A doctor can help you determine whether your symptoms are the result of a viral or bacterial infection and help recommend the best treatment.
Ask A Doc: Antibiotics
In addition to the global public health concern resulting from antibiotic resistance which, as described above, could have serious health consequences for each of us individually, the use of antibiotics can also have many other adverse effects.
