Over the Counter Antibiotics

People are often wondering why they cannot buy over the counter antibiotics and must visit the doctor in order to get a prescription. But the fact is that even thinking about not visiting a doctor, to get antibiotics is wrong, and one of the biggest problems in medicine today.

Namely, people believe that antibiotics are some sort of a magical drug that cures all possible problems from a cold to cancer and therefore over the counter antibiotics would definitely be a step in the wrong direction as people would probably go and buy them even for cuts and bruises.

The problem is the fact that the vast majority of diseases are virus based and antibiotics are helpless against them. Antibiotics only work against bacteria.

Bacteria can also adapt to a certain type of antibiotics if not used properly of if you stop taking them before you heal completely. This is another reason why over the counter antibiotics would not work. There is a high chance that many people would take them until they would feel better and not for the entire treatment period.

Even though antibiotics are still prescribed by doctors and the doctors control the treatment they still have trouble explaining this to their patients and many of the patients ignore their directions. This is why many bacteria types already became resistant to most types of antibiotics and selling over the counter antibiotics would only further enlarge this problem.

I hope I made it clear why there is no way over the counter antibiotics will be available soon. Listen to your doctor and if he says antibiotics will not help you, believe him. And if he says antibiotics will only help if you take the entire dosage that he prescribes, obey him even if you feel better before you finish them. For the sake of humanity ;)

Some countries actually do sell over the counter antibiotics, and in those countries the antibiotics resistant bacteria are a major problem.