Dr Chauhan’s health tips: Cold or flu – why antibiotics won’t work for you

GP Dr Zahid Chauhan

It’s the season of sniffles when shorter days are frequently accompanied by sore heads and throats, runny noses and, if you are very unlucky, a hacking cough and aching limbs.

The common cold and its more virulent cousin the flu, are thoroughly unpleasant and a real irritant that makes us impatient to get up and about and be well again.

But the best cure for these ailments is still bedrest and painkillers for those headaches and sore throats. Plus water. Plenty of water.

Though they were heralded as twentieth century wonder drugs that all but eradicated conditions like TB, antibiotics don’t work for everything – and that includes viral infections such as colds and flu.

Making an appointment at the busiest time of year to see your GP and demanding antibiotics will leave you disappointed and empty handed. However, in the long run, it could help enhance your health for years to come.

Family doctors and prescribing nurses and pharmacists are getting tough on the use of antibiotics. Their vast training and experience tells them that such serious medication should only be dispensed when bacteria need killing or prevented from spreading.

That can be the case in everything from skin complaints through to urinary tract and chest infections and even serious illnesses such as septicaemia and meningitis.

There are a myriad of antibiotics which can be taken in pill form, or as a cream or eye-drops and in very serious cases via injections.

Some are what we call, “broad spectrum” which can treat a variety of infections but you will probably recognise the more familiar names such as penicillin which includes amoxicillin the often yellow coloured medicine given to children.

It is important that you take antibiotics as directed by your doctor.

I have treated patients who have used old antibiotics and found that they simply haven’t worked – as their efficiency decreases with age. There has been a lot of recent controversy about finishing your prescribed course of antibiotics. Well, my advice is: Do so – that is what your doctor has recommended!

Inappropriate and overuse of antibiotics has left not just individual patients but potentially the entire world with a huge health problem. Taking them when you don’t need them actually encourages dangerous bacteria that live inside your body to become resistant.

When your immune system is low – maybe during treatment for a serious condition like cancer – this inability to treat infections could lead to you being unable to fight off a so-called superbug.

There have been dire warnings recently from world health leaders that we are facing an antibiotics armageddon. Around 700,000 people a year across the world die from drug-resistant infections but estimates say this could rise to ten million by 2050. We could also be looking at a situation where a fear of hospital infections means we aren’t able to perform even simple operations like hip-replacements.

Thankfully, organisations such as Antibiotics Research UK (ANTRUK) are putting pressure on the drugs companies to find new and more effective forms of medicine. They are also offering advice on how we can help solve the crisis by: 

• Only using antibiotics when prescribed by a health carer 
• Never demanding antibiotics from your doctor
• Not using old or out-of-date antibiotics
• Washing your hands and being hygienic. Stop the spread of infections!

ANTRUK has produced a film on antibiotics, with actor Helen Avouris. 

They are also encouraging us to hold a Great British Tea Party to raise funds for research into better medicines for our modern world.

The idea is to get together, have a chat and some tea and cake, and think about how we can stop antibiotic resistance.

This may be the biggest health crisis facing our world but we can prevent it from brewing for future generations. 

Dr Zahid Chauhan is a respected GP, health and social care campaigner, and local councillor