Many of my adult patients insist (and a few demand) antibiotics for upper respiratory tract infections--you know: mild coughs, the sniffles, colds, nasal congestion. But as a doctor, I know that most colds and such are caused byviruses, which means that the class of drugs known as antibiotics--developed to kill bacteria and only bacteria, not viruses--won't do these persistent patients a bit of good.
I of course dislike not being able to give these folks what they're asking for, and I'd like to prevent a strained doctor-patient relationship if I can, so I always try to explain these facts about antibiotics, bacteria, and viruses to them. I take a deep breath and proceed to deliver a little speech on the correct and incorrect uses of antibiotics.
Antibiotics are useless against viruses
As I said, most upper respiratory tract infections in healthy adults are caused by viruses; hundreds of viruses can cause cough, nasal congestion, body aches, and sore throat. But, unfortunately, antibiotics can only kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria; they have no effect on viruses, which are much wilier and harder to kill. (Many influenza-A strains are even resistant to anti-viral drugs such as Tamiflu®.)
Please allow me to harp on this key teaching point one more time: Antibiotics have no effect on viral infections. That's right: Here we are, well into the twenty-first century, and medical researchers have yet to develop or discover a good virus killer.
Viral infections go away all by themselves
Luckily, however, if you have a healthy immune system, your killer T-cells are quite capable of finishing off a virus infection in due course, without any assistance from the medical community. Your cold symptoms will usually go away on their own in 7 to 10 days.
How to treat a cold
So the next time you visit your physician for cold symptoms, please do not ask for that antibiotic. Instead,
- If possible, go home and rest (rather than spread the bug to others).
- If you wish, take over-the-counter cold remedies to relieve your symptoms. (But know that they won't shorten the length of your cold.)
- If you really have to go to your job, consider wearing a surgical mask to protect your coworkers from some of the millions of viruses you'll be shedding all over the office.
- Drink lots of fluids.
- Wash your hands often.
- Get vaccinated against influenza every year
And do not give OTC cold medications to kids
By the way, I should emphasize that medical experts now advise against giving anyover-the-counter cough or cold drug to children under the age of 6--even if the labels say that they've been concocted specifically for children. These meds probably won't do a child any good and could possibly do serious harm.
In a future blog, I will explain how the doctors who hand out antibiotics indiscriminately for the wrong reason (to cure viral infections) are contributing to a truly frightening, global, public-health crisis.