The problem with antibiotics is that they are sometimes considered a “panacea,” which means people think they are a form of medicine capable of killing all forms of disease. This is not true.
While there are many antibiotics available to treat disease, they are effective for killing diseases resulting from bacteria, not those forming from viruses.
There is no antibiotic that helps cure a viral infection. If you take an antibiotic when you have a viral cold, you may build up antibodies so that when your body does fall ill because of a bacterial infection, the antibiotic your doctor normally might use may not work.
Bacteria are organisms that grow, change and mature. They are especially good at adaptation. That means they can adapt to their surroundings, becoming more powerful. When this happens many antibiotics that used to be able to cure an infection are no longer able to. Today there are only a handful of antibiotics available to treat some of the more dangerous diseases.
This is largely due to overuse of antibiotics. Many doctors feel pressured to prescribe them to patients that demand an antibiotic to feel better. The patient does not sometimes realize the antibiotic may have a placebo effect, meaning they feel better even though there recovery has nothing to do with the antibiotic.
Alternatively, the person may feel better because by the time they take the antibiotic, there body may already be successfully fighting the virus that first invaded the body.
Antibiotics are not something to fool around with. If you can find a suitable solution to your ailment without using them, then use it, with your doctor’s approval.