Just Say No to Drugs!

By Carolyn Matthews

Recently I fell victim to the perennial winter illness ― the common cold. A nasty virus induced an attractive array of symptoms including coughing bouts, a constantly running nose and sneezing attacks.

I was confident I simply had a cold, which, although fairly inconvenient and uncomfortable at the time, would likely clear up in a matter of days. Since there is no cure for the cold, I decided to simply take it easy and wait for it to clear up.

My colleagues were not so patient. They decided that I absolutely had to visit the doctor. Realizing my objections were futile, I eventually gave in and agreed to visit a doctor.

After being examined for no more than three minutes by a doctor, he confirmed that I indeed had a case of the common cold. I was positive that this visit to the doctor was unnecessary and he would simply tell me to get some rest.

To my utter disbelief he handed me a lengthy prescription for five different pills to be taken three times a day. Looking at the rainbow of pills, I was immediately wary. I had never in my life taken 15 pills a day for anything, let alone for a simple cold!

What worried me the most was that this virtual mountain of pills intended to cure me of the cold likely included an antibiotic. Unfortunately, colds are caused by viruses, not by bacteria. Antibiotics work only to combat bacterial infections, and thus have absolutely no effect in treating a cold.

Despite being perfectly aware of this ineffectiveness of antibiotics to treat viral infections, some doctors still prescribe antibiotics to cold sufferers. Perhaps they hope to placate patients seeking a cure or believe that the antibiotic will have a placebo effect. Although the patient may feel better psychologically, this is actually a very dangerous practice. Misprescribed antibiotics have profoundly negative effects on both individual patients and the health of the public.

The danger of antibiotics hit close to home for me. Several years ago, after suffering weeks of congestion, I was diagnosed with a sinus infection. I was prescribed an antibiotic and rested assured my problem was solved.

Unfortunately for me this antibiotic, like most commonly prescribed antibiotics, was capable of killing a wide range of bacteria. In fact, it was so effective at killing bacteria that it not only killed the bacteria causing my sinus infection, but also killed natural bacteria in my digestive system. Killing off these good bacteria led to a much worse situation than I had been in with my sinus infection.

With the good bacteria in my intestines and colon wiped out, nasty bacteria called Clostridium difficile, were able to thrive and proliferate. These bacteria produced toxins, which induced severe diarrhoea, abdominal pain, and cramps. To fight the C. difficile bacteria, another antibiotic was required. But this was not enough to kill these hardy bacteria, and it took several rounds of antibiotics before my body was finally rid of the illness.

While my experience with C. difficile served as a brutal indication of the potential dangers of antibiotics, the most severe problem caused by antibiotic use does not affect simply the individual taking the drug. The most frightening harmful of effect of antibiotics is their role in the evolution of drug-resistant bacteria.

Every time a patient takes an antibiotic it kills sensitive bacteria, but resistant bacteria survive and multiply. The antibiotic can no longer effectively kill these resistant bacteria, and a new antibiotic must be used. Some strains of bacteria are currently resistant to multiple antibiotics, leaving scientists scrambling to produce new drugs that can actually kill them. These multiple drug-resistant bacteria pose one of the most significant health threats of our time.

In reality, it is not the use of antibiotics itself that makes bacteria resistant. Resistant bacteria occur randomly in very small numbers. When a person is not taking antibiotics, a small percentage of their bacteria may be resistant to antibiotics, but the vast majority are sensitive. As soon as a person takes antibiotics, the situation changes significantly. The antibiotics kill all the sensitive bacteria, leaving the few resistant bacteria free to multiply and take over. By taking antibiotics, we turn our own bodies into an ideal environment for resistant bacteria to thrive.

The discovery of antibiotics revolutionized modern health care. Unfortunately the overuse of antibiotics could just as quickly render us powerless to fight against bacteria. Every doctor and patient has the power to either exacerbate or improve the current situation. The next time you visit a doctor you owe it to yourself, and to the health of everyone around you, to find out what drugs you will be taking and if they are really necessary. Unless you have a definitively bacterial infection, antibiotics are not worth the risk.

The writer is an English teacher at Buyong Elementary School in. She can be reached at carolynmmatthews@gmail.com.