Thursday, October 19, 2006
Musings on the Overprescription of Antibiotics
At first I thought it would be 'cool' to be prescribed penicilin ('scuse the spelling) but then thought 'no, i promised myself i would never take antibiotics unless i really needed them'. It's true - especially for tonsilitis, which I read is not a life-threatening condition, and goes away by itself in less than a week - why not let your immune system do what it was supposed to do instead of fucking around with it? Now, the poor guy with the arm in Requiem for a Dream was in dire need of some antibiotics. But I didn't need them. But alas there goes $20 down the drain and now I have two little bottles of penicilin tablets which I will never use unless I go on a botanical research expedition in the Congo and accidentally um eat a mushroom or something... I think.
The only thing you need to treat with tonsilitis is the GOD DAMN PAIN, which happens to be subsiding thankgod, and I don't know if it's the four tablets of antibiotics I took in desperation to make the pain go away ASAP, or just the fact that it's only supposed to last for a couple of days anyway.
I know I'm repeating myself, but that bloody doctor promised me Advil would make the pain go away completely, which was totally wrong, and once again I woke up in the middle of the god damn night wishing I could grab a knife and rip out the offending tonsils aswell as the swollen lymph nodes in my neck myself and be done with it.
Which brings me to the point - how do you convince a doctor of how much pain you're in without sounding like a junkie? What if you're really in considerable pain and the doctor just thinks oh no, it's only tonsilitis, she'll be right, and I fucking had to take a very EXPENSIVE day off because I knew I couldn't function while every second of the day was spent dreading the next time I would have to swallow? ¶ 17:20
At first I thought it would be 'cool' to be prescribed penicilin ('scuse the spelling) but then thought 'no, i promised myself i would never take antibiotics unless i really needed them'. It's true - especially for tonsilitis, which I read is not a life-threatening condition, and goes away by itself in less than a week - why not let your immune system do what it was supposed to do instead of fucking around with it? Now, the poor guy with the arm in Requiem for a Dream was in dire need of some antibiotics. But I didn't need them. But alas there goes $20 down the drain and now I have two little bottles of penicilin tablets which I will never use unless I go on a botanical research expedition in the Congo and accidentally um eat a mushroom or something... I think.
The only thing you need to treat with tonsilitis is the GOD DAMN PAIN, which happens to be subsiding thankgod, and I don't know if it's the four tablets of antibiotics I took in desperation to make the pain go away ASAP, or just the fact that it's only supposed to last for a couple of days anyway.
I know I'm repeating myself, but that bloody doctor promised me Advil would make the pain go away completely, which was totally wrong, and once again I woke up in the middle of the god damn night wishing I could grab a knife and rip out the offending tonsils aswell as the swollen lymph nodes in my neck myself and be done with it.
Which brings me to the point - how do you convince a doctor of how much pain you're in without sounding like a junkie? What if you're really in considerable pain and the doctor just thinks oh no, it's only tonsilitis, she'll be right, and I fucking had to take a very EXPENSIVE day off because I knew I couldn't function while every second of the day was spent dreading the next time I would have to swallow? ¶ 17:20
