Image is from Discover Magazine
There is a wide difference between antiviral drugs and antibiotics, and you should know the difference and the effects of these two drug classifications on your body. The range of antiviral medications is narrow while the range of antibiotics is quite full.
Antiviral Drugs
The doctor may prescribe an antiviral medication for you if you suspect you recently were around someone displaying a viral illness such as flu symptoms. If you have good reason to believe you contacted a viral disease, but you are not yet showing signs and symptoms an antiviral medication may prevent you from coming down with that illness, or at least minimize the effect of that disease before it occurs.
An antiviral drug is effective, but only when administered at the first signs of contact or symptoms. An antiviral diminishes the development of the illness.
A few virus includes,
- Standard coughs
- Sore throats except for strep throat
- HIV
- Hepatitis B and C
- Flu
There are a few drugs in the antiviral category. These drugs used short-term, are not profitable for pharmaceutical companies to research or keep to a high supply.
The antiviral drugs used in the treatment of HIV are in high supply and demand, because of the many people using them and the fact that this particular antiviral drug takes the HIV infection and turns it into a chronic, not terminal condition you can manage.
HIV is not necessarily a life sentence since these antivirals came onto the drug market. Pharmaceutical companies need to put more research into a larger variety of medications to fight other viruses.
If you develop a secondary infection from a virus such as you have the flu, now you develop pneumonia is the flu many times does, you need an antibiotic to fight pneumonia.
Powerful Antibiotics
If you contact a bacterial infection on the outside or inside of the body, the doctor may prescribe for you an antibiotic. There is a broad range of antibiotics on the marketplace today, each offering different targets of healing. Antibiotics kill the bacteria in your body that is making you ill. Antibiotics also stop these bacteria from multiplying and growing.
Doctors today are taught to use extreme caution in ordering patients antibiotics because research is finding more and more people becoming resistive to the usefulness of appropriate antibiotics because people are taking too much of a particular antibiotic and building up a resistance, thus, the antibiotic becomes useless in fighting off bacterial infections for you.
You may go to the doctors when you have a bad case of the flu, and you feel you need an antibiotic. However, the doctor will not prescribe an antibiotic for you because it will not help you get over the flu and in the end, the antibiotic makes your body more harm.
There is an extensive list of reasons why your doctor may prescribe an antibiotic such as but not limited to,
- Ear infections
- Strep throat
- Sinus infections
- Urinary tract infections
- Wound infections
- Diverticulitis
- Colitis
- Bronchitis
- Pneumonia
Antibiotics also put up an invisible protective barrier between you and others around you once you have taken the antibiotic 24-48 hours.
Resistance to Antibiotics
- Do not demand any antibiotics from your doctor if he or she feels you do not need them.
- Never take antibiotics for viral infections.
- Never demand an antibiotic every time you get the sniffles or a cough.
Antibiotics are powerful drugs and when used for the right reasons save lives. Take your antibiotic, according to your doctor’s orders. Never skip doses or incomplete an antibiotic because you feel better and think you are over the infection.