As the weather changes, hospitals and clinics tend to see more and more patients roll in for treatment with many cold-like symptoms.
Typically, when those symptoms are prolonged, patients and doctors expect the answer to be antibiotics — one prescription and you’re out the door.
But this isn’t the best
answer, experts say, noting that recent studies have suggested the effectiveness of antibiotics is declining, because people are taking them inappropriately.
John Kemerer, assistant professor of family medicine at Ohio University who practices at Campus Care, said for one reason or another, antibiotics are seen as a go-to fix. He added that he is often bombarded by phone calls from angry parents questioning why their child didn’t receive a prescription for an antibiotic.
His typical response is simple: “An antibiotic is unnecessary.”
In reality, he said, antibiotics are necessary for things like bronchitis or strep throat, but not for a cold, which is a viral infection. Advertisements for cold medicines can lead people to believe a cough or cold will last only two or three days, he said, but a cough can last up to 17 days.
Ben Holter, pharmacy manager at the Drugstore at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital, says that the organisms in our bodies have developed resistance to all antibiotics given to us.
“To me, that’s scary,” Holter said, adding that patients go to the doctor and expect a prescription, even if isn’t helpful. “We want everything now. We want to be helped quickly.”
Lisa Winston, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of California in San Francisco, said more people — especially college students — need to be aware of this problem.
She says people are mostly just unaware of what an antibiotic can treat.
eb395612@ohiou.edu
