When it comes around to cold and flu season, many people assume that every illness can be treated with a round of antibiotics. In fact, they are one of the most over prescribed medications that you can get from your doctor. There’s a significant different between a bacterial infection and a viral infection as antibiotics have no impact on viral infections at all. Knowing what illness you have will help you to determine whether you should be seeking antibiotics from your doctor or look at other over the counter treatments while the ailment runs its course.

Antibiotics for Sinusitis

One of the most important things to know about being prescribed antibiotics for sinusitis is that you should wait at least 7 days after experiencing the first symptoms to start taking the medication. It is typically a condition that develops as a result of a virus, so it is important that you wait for the bacterial infection to develop before receiving treatment. If you’re dealing with sinusitis you might notice the following symptoms:

• Pus emitting from your nasal cavities
• Pain on one (or both) sides of your face
• Sinus pain on one side of your face
• Worsened symptoms after 7 days of first symptoms

Before you get the final diagnosis for bacterial sinusitis, you can rely on over the counter medications that are designed to help treat fevers, pain, and to decongest your body.

Antibiotics for Sore Throat

In some cases, patients will be required to get antibiotics for their sore throat, depending on the illness that is causing the symptom. Most of the illnesses that make your throat sore are viral and only 15% of patients have strep throat. Some of the most common symptoms to look out for if you’re wondering whether to get antibiotics for your throat or not include:

• Fever
• Pus on your tonsils
• Tender lymph nodes on the front of the neck
• Inability to cough

In most cases you will be given narrow-spectrum antibiotics after your doctor determines what strain of infection you have.

Antibiotics for Colds

One of the most common ailments that people assume need to be treated by antibiotics are colds. Unfortunately, colds are in fact a virus that cannot be treated by any type of antibiotic. You will have to rely on over the counter medications to help treat the symptoms until the virus runs its course. In the event that your cold symptoms last longer than 10 days, you should seek medical assistance.

The number one type of prescription medication recommended by medical experts all over the world are prescription grade antibiotics.

Used to fight against all kinds of bacterium, infections, and other “bad nasties” that could potentially create a whole host of negative health situations in the body, antibiotics have long been considered to be the “Swiss Army knife” of the prescription medication world.

Unfortunately, a new major study conducted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States between 2008 and 2015 shows that antibiotics may not be anywhere near as effective as they claim to be – and that they may not even be useful at all!

Close to 60% of all prescription medications are antibiotics

In the United States alone, 47 million prescriptions are given out every single year for antibiotics.

Doctors love to prescribe these medications to help control respiratory conditions, fight back against allergies, resolve sinus infections and pneumonia, and some are even giving antibiotics to fight against the common cold.

It’s also likely that patients will receive antibiotics for cuts and lacerations, burns, surgery, and a whole host of other issues, as this medication is seen as the “one-size-fits-all” solution to fight back against potential infection before it has an opportunity to establish itself.

But according to this new research, the overwhelming majority of those medications aren’t producing the kind of impact that they claim they do and they may not be causing any extra impact whatsoever.

This would make these pills a lot closer to a placebo than anything else, something that the pharmaceutical industry probably doesn’t want their doctors or their patients to really understand.

Doctors are warning about the misuse of prescription drugs

For years and years now doctors have been speaking out against these antibiotics that aren’t at all that effective.

There has been a spread of dangerous infections responsible for killing millions and millions of people all over the world, including a major spread of infection in 2011 that killed 30,000 people – even though, antibiotics were supposed to destroy the bacteria altogether.

The pharmaceutical industry is reeling from attacks that are coming down from all sides, mostly because they are producing medicine that has the potential to do quite a bit of harm (due to the side effects that day produce in the human body) without any potential whatsoever to produce effective results.

Think twice about using antibiotic prescriptions in the future.