Antibiotics are those kinds of medicines that help the body to fight infections which are caused by bacteria. They either kill the bacteria or make it difficult for the bacteria to multiply or grow. Bacteria are a specific kind of germs that are found inside and outside our bodies. Most are harmless and even help people, but some can cause severe infections like a painful throat.
How do antibiotics help?
Antibiotics can help treat a variety of infections caused by bacteria, such as:
- Sore throat
- Infection in the urinary tract
- Whooping cough
Antibiotics also help in treating life-threatening conditions that are caused by bacteria causing sepsis which is how antibodies see your response to fight the infection.
What you cannot treat with antibiotics?
You must know that you cannot treat viruses with antibiotics. These viruses may cause:
- Running nose even if the mucus is green, thick, and yellow
- Sore throat caused by a virus
- Flu
- Senior chest infection like bronchitis
You must know that antibiotics can help to cure sore throat due to bacteria, but if it is due to a virus, then antibiotics won’t work on them.
Some common bacterial infections do not need antibiotics which include:
- Sinus infection
- Specific kind of ear infection
For these issues, you do not need to take antibiotics because they heal on their own. Taking antibiotics won’t help you, but if you take them, you will have some side effects, so it’s better to avoid antibiotics in such situations.
Why should you take antibiotics?
Antibiotics help you to treat those infections that are caused by some bacteria saving your life. However, sometimes antibiotics do come with specific side effects and contribute to developing resistance against antibiotics which is a very urgent threat to general public health. Whenever your body needs antibiotics, the benefits typically outweigh the side effects of antibiotic resistance.
However, if you are prescribed too many antibiotics unnecessarily or if youmisuse antibiotics, it might threaten the usefulness of an essential drug. Therefore, it is advised that you should take it only in extreme cases when you need it and not take it unnecessarily; as such, take antibiotics only when you need them to protect yourself from serious harm to prevent antibiotic resistance in the future. You can study the history ofantibiotics to grasp the matter better.
Understanding the misuse of antibiotics
Misusing antibiotics happens when a person is prescribed an antibiotic that is:
- Wrong
- The dosage of antibiotic is wrong
- Or you continue the antibiotic for the wrong period of time.
Hence you should take your dosage and the amount of antibiotic you are supposed to consume very seriously. Please do not take it without the advice of a medical professional in any circumstances because it might cause serious issues later.
Unnecessary if you take antibiotics when it is not required, such as taking it for a common cold caused by a virus is a wrong practice. Sometimes your body has certain kinds of infections caused by bacteria. Still, those bacteria do not always need antibiotics to treat them, such as ear infections or sinus infections. If, in these scenarios you take antibiotics, then it is simply a misuse of antibiotics.
Antibiotics are not always the answer to your sickness!