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Are all antibiotics the same?

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also, if your sore throat is the result of a viral infection rather than bacterial antibiotics wont do diddly squat anyway. If its bad enough to require treating best popping to the doctors for a proper diagnosis and treatment.

hope you feel better soon!

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Take a look here for a list of some of the many types of antibiotics and their particular scope. Just as there are different classes of bacteria (eg gram positive or gram negative) so there are different antibiotics used to treat the infections caused by them.

 

I agree with what you say but quite honestly in this instance and only this instance no harm will be done. at the end of the day she had a packet of prescribed antibiotics that could be used to cure a sore throat the doctor would not have prescribed if they were dangerous ie. penecillin allergic to I answered the question that was asked IMO

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Its so funny to see someone so sure of themselves when they are so wrong - and with such a username LOL!

Anyway - after several years spent studying biomed sciences and a career in the health services, please let me assure you that you really are wrong this time. Not any antibiotic will cure any sore throat! Antibiotics have very different modes of action, they target different things.

I'll give you one very very simple example (and apologies to the science peeps - but I am going to generalise MASSIVELY here because he did ask for it be kept simple..okay?).

Bacteria can be classified as Gram positive, or Gram negative, due to different types of cell wall. Some antibiotics target Gram postivie bacteria specifically by way of certain molecules which are present. These molecules are not present in Gram negative bacteria. If you give the antibiotic for G+ bacteria when in fact you have a G- infection, it will do absolutely bugger all (technical term).

Its a bit like giving someone a phillips head screwdriver when the screw is suitable for a flat head screwdriver - yeah its a screwdriver but its fairly useless.

 

Hope that goes some way to explaining.

 

christ!!!! all this for a sore throat. and if it does bugger all no harm done its common sense not rocket sceince

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christ!!!! all this for a sore throat. and if it does bugger all no harm done its common sense not rocket sceince

 

Again .... Wrong!!

 

 

Not only will it do bugger all towards curing the sore throat, it's actually possible (unlikely, but nevertheless possible) that by taking the wrong antibiotics, you will cause the bacteria to mutate into something even more dangerous.

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christ!!!! all this for a sore throat. and if it does bugger all no harm done its common sense not rocket sceince

 

And this is before we consider the fact that over 90% of sore throats are caused by a virus which will be totally unaffected by antibiotics at all.

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I agree with what you say but quite honestly in this instance and only this instance no harm will be done. at the end of the day she had a packet of prescribed antibiotics that could be used to cure a sore throat the doctor would not have prescribed if they were dangerous ie. penecillin allergic to I answered the question that was asked IMO

 

Sorry! Me again! Just wanted to tell you about the problems with taking too many antibiotics when you don't have to - just so you are a bit better informed :-)

 

Going to do another example here. Remember that lengths of treatment with antibiotics depends on the infection - some things take a week, some things require 3 weeks of treatment!

 

Say that unbeknown to her, she had 100 or so bacteria lingering around in her guts, the sort which cause nasty problems. Maybe they would have just given a mild tummy upset, or her immune system would have taken care of them on its own - nothing serious going on. But then she took the antibiotic, and of those 100, the weakest ones died off first. She kept taking it, and more died off. She stops taking it! This is the sort of bacteria which requires a month of treatment if you get a bad infection, so they aren't all dead. And all you have left are the strongest ones, who happily grow and divide and multiply now - lots and lots of the best "SAS-style" bacteria who make her very poorly indeed.

 

This is how superbugs are made. This is why all packets of antibiotics tell you to take the WHOLE course of treatment, and this is why doctors don't like to over-prescribe them, or give them when its probably viral anyway.

 

Hope that helps :-)

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christ!!!! all this for a sore throat. and if it does bugger all no harm done its common sense not rocket sceince

 

Have tried to explain above! Hope it helps!

 

Hope you also notice that I am attempting to explain why you are wrong and not resorting to any form of abuse as others might LOL!

 

I do hope you have the similarly good grace to admit that you don't really know what you're talking about.

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Its a bit like giving someone a phillips head screwdriver when the screw is suitable for a flat head screwdriver - yeah its a screwdriver but its fairly useless.

 

That is just soooo funny:D:thumbsup:

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BTW Clare- I'm assuming that for your tooth you were given metronidazole?

 

If you were to be given anything for a throat infection, it would be something effective against a wide spectrum of aerobic bacteria- whereas metronidazole is very effective, but only against anaerobic bacteria.

 

No use to your throat whatsoever- sorry.

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quote from previous post not by me

 

the antibiotic for G+ bacteria when in fact you have a G- infection, it will do absolutely bugger all (technical term).

 

 

See I never said that someone else did I could have said get some mouldy jelly to cure your sore throat as was implied in a previous posted on SF.

You are blowing this up out of propotion

sore throat /got tablets /take them./result relief/no relief/ start again you are not honestly saying any harm would be done. In fact on the balance of probabilites it would give a cure

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quote from previous post not by me

 

the antibiotic for G+ bacteria when in fact you have a G- infection, it will do absolutely bugger all (technical term).

 

 

See I never said that someone else did I could have said get some mouldy jelly to cure your sore throat as was implied in a previous posted on SF.

You are blowing this up out of propotion

sore throat /got tablets /take them./result relief/no relief/ start again you are not honestly saying any harm would be done. In fact on the balance of probabilites it would give a cure

 

 

Did you even read my post about creating other problems and causing more resilient bacteria to grow and multiply?

 

I see where you are coming from - no, it probably wouldnt kill her (although its also unlikely to give a cure) but taking any old antibiotic for anything really does cause problems with resistance. Which in turn causes bigger problems if you really do need to treat something later on.

 

I have a friend currently in Intensive Care in Rotherham with a hospital-acquired infection. It won't respond to antibiotics because they are resistant. It is a very real problem. MRSA will have arisen in similar circumstances. We need to be less blase about these things. If she passed on any resistant bugs to someone old/young it could be potentially very serious, and she'd never know.

 

see?

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