Your Burning Questions About Antibiotics Answered
“By far the most googling [I] was,” Amy Schumer said in herSNL monologue this weekend, “Can I drink these antibiotics?” and “Are these antibiotics making my contraception useless?” “Comedy aside, these are really good questions, and most of us probably ask them when we are given this recipe. Here are some answers.
After all, 80% of us take antibiotics every year (according to the latest data, since 2011). These drugs are powerful, common, and we don’t always know what’s going on in our bodies when we take them.
So … can I drink these antibiotics?
Most of the time, yes, but check the label.
Some antibiotics, including sulfonamides or “sulfa” drugs like Bactrim , do not interact well with alcohol. They will make you flush, nausea, and vomit, even if you only drink a couple of sips – or perhaps even with the small amount of alcohol in cough syrups. This will not make the antibiotic less effective, but it may make you feel terrible. It’s so terrible that such drugs are used to treat alcoholism .
If you get a prescription for one of these drugs, an alcohol warning will appear on the booklet that came with it and possibly also on a sticker on the bottle. You read it anyway, right?
Do antibiotics interfere with birth control or other medications?
Sometimes. There is one antibacterial drug known to interfere with hormonal birth control: rifampicin (brand names rifadin and rimactan). However, you are unlikely to take the form on a regular doctor’s appointment: it is used for some less common infections, such as tuberculosis and meningitis. There is also an antifungal medication called griseofulvin, which can also affect the tablets.
If you do take one of these drugs, use an additional non-hormonal birth control method, such as a condom, to make sure you are still protected. Some other antibiotics besides these two have a warning to use a condom anyway. We don’t know for sure if they will increase the chances of pregnancy, but when it comes to accidental pregnancies, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Other drugs can interact with antibiotics, rarely but possible. For example, macrolide antibiotics and statins can cause heart problems. If you are taking prescription medications regularly, review this list of antibiotic interactions to know what to expect.
Your doctor and pharmacist should keep track of the medications you take, but they only have a chance to do so if you tell them everything and if their records are updated. If your regular doctor has a record of your medications, but you walk into an emergency clinic on the weekend because of some minor illness and don’t bother to provide your full medication history, the nurse or pharmacist (or computer!) Can’t. the clinic may mark a dangerous combination.
So make sure that when they ask what medications you are taking, you answer completely, including over-the-counter medications and even herbal or dietary supplements. Or at least keep a list on your phone, and when it turns out you go home with a script, share the list so they can double check.
Am I susceptible to certain antibiotics? Z-pak never works for me.
You may not be resistant to antibiotics, but the germs that make up your infection can. If you get sick again another time, it will be other germs and all previous bets will be canceled.
This is different from allergies. If you are allergic to penicillin, your immune system attacks penicillin as if it were an invasive disease. The result: symptoms that can be both annoying and life-threatening . Allergy means that from now on the medicine is prohibited for you.
But when an antibiotic just doesn’t work, that’s not a problem for you: it means that the medicine is not effective against the germs that you are suffering from.
Antibiotics kill bacteria, so they cannot work if your illness was caused by something else, such as a virus. Or maybe you have a bacterial disease, but it is the bacteria that have lodged that are resistant to the antibiotic prescribed by your doctor. For example, azithromycin (Z-pak) is a favorite of doctors and patients because it is just five simple tablets, but many commonly circulating bacteria have become resistant to it . That might explain why it doesn’t work that often for you.
Ideally, your provider should find out what the creatures inside you are exposed to. If you’ve ever had a throat culture or urine culture, the idea here is that they test if they can grow bacteria in the laboratory, and while they do, they will try to throw some antibiotics on them to see which of them microbes are sensitive.
It’s also possible that antibiotics might work at first, but then either they pick up the antibiotic resistance gene (bacteria exchange DNA with each other for fun), or the antibiotic kills one type of microbe just to create an opportunity for their resistant counterparts. … Call your doctor and ask if you need a different prescription.
Can antibiotics cure my [insert disease here]?
Antibiotics work against bacterial infections, but not viral ones. This handy table from the CDC (shown above) summarizes which infections are most likely to be bacterial: angina, whooping cough, and urinary tract infections are on the list. Colds, flu, sinus and ear infections are usually caused by a virus. This means that antibiotics do not work against them, despite the fact that they are usually prescribed.
Bacteria are small living things made up of just one cell. They are smaller and simpler than the cells that make up our bodies, but they have many of the same parts: DNA, ribosomes, all kinds of cellular mechanisms that keep them alive and do the work they love to do – regardless of whether it makes us sickness, keeping us healthy, or any of the millions of things we don’t care about.
Viruses are not that complicated. These are little packets of DNA (or RNA) and protein, and they just wait for some other cell to find them and read the instructions written in their DNA that say something like, “Make me bigger and kill yourself ! ” Ouch.
Antibiotics that kill bacteria are useless against viruses.
There are antiviral drugs , including one that may work against the flu, but they don’t work for most common ailments like coughs and sinus infections. In such cases, the doctor in charge will send you home without medication. Instead , take a rest, take care of yourself, and wait – antibiotics will not help against viral infections.
But if the doctor gave me antibiotics, doesn’t that mean I need them?
Sadly not: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, half of the time outpatient antibiotics are probably unnecessary . Doctors can prescribe antibiotics because patients ask for or expect them. They can also write prescriptions when they are not sure if an antibiotic is needed, or they may follow old guidelines that were more liberal in their use.
Unfortunately, too many antibiotics can lead to more resistant infections in the future (for you or others). They can also kill our healthy bacteria, leading to yeast infections and diarrhea. In addition, there are side effects, drug interactions and the possibility of developing allergies – all of which can sometimes become serious. So now we know that the best approach is to avoid using antibiotics unless you really need them.
Antibiotics will not cure most of the common illnesses that bring you to the doctor’s office, including sinus infections, coughs, and runny nose. For those few that may have strep throat, for example, in most cases your doctor should have a pre-appointment test to make sure it is bacterial and to find out what antibiotics it will respond to.
You can help your doctor by telling him ahead of time that you would rather not take antibiotics unless absolutely necessary. One strategy to help both of you when the need for antibiotics is questionable is to take home a prescription later, depending on how you are feeling . I find that doctors are often relieved when I tell them that this is what I would prefer, and often I don’t have to fill out a prescription at all.
Should I Take Probiotics?
Because antibiotics kill both good and bad bacteria, probiotics – good bacteria in the form of food or pills – should relieve some of the diarrhea and other symptoms that accompany a course of antibiotics. Results are not guaranteed, but snacking on yogurt won’t hurt and may help .
What happens if I don’t take all of my pills?
You have seen the warnings on the pill bottles: “Stop taking all of this medicine unless directed by your doctor.” This is designed to combat antibiotic resistance: if all bacteria are susceptible and you kill them quickly, they won’t have a chance to pick up the resistance gene. Or, if some are already resistant, the antibiotic can kill the susceptible while your immune system picks up the stragglers.
It’s even worse if you take a pill or two, killing sensitive germs, but leaving the resistant population to grow. Repeat this a few times and you’ve just given these resistant microbes an evolutionary boost. This is why you should take a good long course of pills that continue to poison the germs long after you feel better: this is one way to be a good citizen and increase the chances that antibiotics will still work for the next person who is theirs. accepts. …
However, this is a strong recommendation, not a commandment. If you develop an allergic reaction or a serious side effect, call your doctor and tell them. They will likely tell you to stop taking it and may require a new prescription.
Illustration by Global Panorama .
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