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The harm of taking antibiotics unnessarilyHow antibiotics affect our immune system. Overuse of antibiotics suppresses our own immune function. It robs our body of a chance to develop strong defenses against the common bacteria in our environment. Our immune system develops in combat against foreign substances and emerges stronger and healthier if we don’t use antibiotics at the first sign of an illness.
The case for resistant bacteria, "supergerms". Antibiotics will kill only susceptible bacteria, allowing resistant bacteria to emerge and grow unchecked. Because of our overuse of antibiotics we are facing a smoldering epidemic of common, everyday bacteria resistant to all antibiotics. In addition, the widespread use of antibiotics in the livestock industry is contributing to the development of "supergerms" as demonstrated in a recent case of multidrug-resistant salmonella traced to hamburger meat.Unless our bodies on their own can mount a defense against these mutant strains, we, as patients, are doomed.
Don't assume the chances of this are very remote and that this can happen only far away in big cities. We have come up against such bacteria right here in Brattleboro. Only the combined force of a whole battery of powerful antibiotics gives the patient a fighting chance.
Aren't there always new antibiotics? Medical science is furiously seeking to develop new and more powerful antibiotics. Unhappily they too will eventually suffer the same fate unless we get away from the hold that antibiotics have on our imagination and beliefs.
When are antibiotics necessary? They are necessary and life-saving: when bacteria are firmly lodged in such vital organs as the lungs, the kidneys, the brain, the liver etc. In healthy young people a pneumonia is usually heralded by some, if not all, of these symptoms: a high fever, chest pain, shortness of breath, a deep cough productive of mucus which is purulent, that means loaded with pus cells. A bacterial sinusitis usually produces facial pain, occasionally facial swelling, a fever and a thick, purulent discharge. A strep throat is usually accompanied by swollen tonsils, swollen lymph nodes and a fever of over 39 C.—Be aware though that older people, and those with a chronic illness or with a compromised immune system may not show all of these signs and symptoms, in fact may only feel profoundly exhausted, and therefore should seek medical help early on.
