Antibiotics For Chest Infections
Antibiotics are life savour and everybody knows it, without them it is not possible to do certain operations but what people don’t know or maybe not sure about is antibiotics are only used for bacterial infections and not for viral infections. Viral infections like chest infections, cough and cold. Many times people have used antibiotics when it’s viral infection but it has done more harm than good. Antibiotics does not work efficiently with other medicines in fact it may hinder the effect of other medicines while using antibiotics, for ex. Warfarin it is a blood thinning drug that might not work with antibiotics, also the women who are taking contraceptive pills with antibiotics. The contraceptive may not work as efficiently as before. Also it has been known that there are two types of bacteria, good and bad. While antibiotics kill the bad stuff, it also kills the good bacteria of the gut and that is a problem itself because good flora helps in keeping the immunity intact with a healthy body. It has also been found that the bacteria when used plenty times it develops a resistance towards the drugs. Therefore antibiotics are not used like it was used before.
The George Jacoby of Harvard Medical School said something about the immunity effect that is very important. Infections always have a way to skip through the antibiotics thrown their way, they accommodate and come back with a vengeance. They will always find a way to come back as they were here(earth) before us(humans).
Antibiotics will only be considered in chest infections if you are senile, you have a temperature of 100f or over. It also includes asthma and COPD that is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease mostly found in chronic smoker. Also if you have a long standing lung disease and if you are taking treatment like chemotherapy for cancer and your immune system has been compromised. If you have diabetes and pleurisy your immunity is already weak due to this. Pleurisy is inflammation of the boundary of the lungs.
Pneumonia
J. Peterson of the university college, London, from the department of the centre for infectious disease and epidemiology and department of primary care and population sciences has researched and concluded that antibiotics indeed help in preventing pneumonia in elder people after taking them due to chest infection. Clinical trials have been conducted from 1991 and 2001 that out of 1000, 403 patients are in risk factor of pneumonia if untreated by antibiotics in chest infections. It considerably reduced by more than 140 persons if treated by antibiotics.
Prevention
Prevention is better than cure, it is a famous saying and everybody should swear by it. A healthy lifestyle is solution to everything. Your immune system will thank you if you take better care. Take medicines on time, eat healthy food and take better care of your body. Exercise daily or do power yoga that way infection will not persist and you will heal early than usual. Preventing bacterial and viral infection through healthy lifestyle should be the moto.