One of the most commonly prescribed groups of antibiotics has come under fire with reports that some people have suffered sometimes catastrophic injury after taking them. Are you at risk?
Over 154 million prescriptions for antibiotics are written in the u.s. each year with many of them potentially saving lives but in recent years one of the most commonly prescribed groups of antibiotics has come under fire with claims people have suffered sometimes catastrophic injury after taking them fluoroquinolones are a class of antibiotics that have been
Prescribed for years treat everything from sinus infections deceptive shot but now some doctors are concluding that they should only be used in very specific situations they say patients are suffering from nerve damage irregular heartbeats depression and seizures because of the medication the food and drug administration is currently advising against using these
Antibiotics except as a last resort but the drugs are still commonly prescribed for minor infections so how can you protect yourself and your family from the dangerous side effects of antibiotics so when it comes to this class of medication referred to as fluoroquinolones there is a black box warning which is really telling physicians everyone else pharmacists
Patients look there is potential here for severe adverse reactions as opposed to the typical reactions where you know you all seen the list but in this case the risks were with tendinitis or potential tendon rupture peripheral neuropathy cns which are central nervous system affects seizures now the good news is lots of these antibiotics have been prescribed and
The great majority people do just fine but the concern is that old habits die hard for maybe a very simple upper respiratory infection that may not even need antibiotics at all these are still commonly prescribed and that’s where maybe as physicians we need to do better that you know think outside the box you know we have a list of what is your first go-to drug
For a given condition maybe we should rethink this and not immediately go to the to the quinolones as a first choice drug i’ve prescribed them for years i’ve taken them myself on numerous occasions i have felt some 10 and musculoskeletal irritation and i and my doctor warned me that and i backed off and stopped and you know they went away and i think generally
Speaking it just makes me think about when antibiotics should be prescribed and i think there is definitely a place for antibiotics and in a lot of countries where you go to the doctor they say you need this antibiotic it’s because they’ve weighed the risks and the benefits but sometimes i think patients will go into a doctor’s office with a virus and you don’t
Treat a virus with an antibiotic and they will become very upset if the doctor does not prescribe an antibiotic so just realize that once again there is a place for antibiotics and even these antibiotics can be appropriate in the in particular situations but sometimes your doctor is kind of trying to protect you from yourself because if you don’t even if it’s a
Mild side effect like nausea or vomiting we don’t want you to have that either if you don’t need it you don’t need an antibiotic we think about antibiotic resistance although i would argue there are a lot of health care providers out there that don’t think about benefits versus risks they forget that there are risks with antibiotics there are a lot of people with
Heavy pens out there and it’s because it’s really easy to get five stars from a patient when you just give them what they want and then this has been an increasingly frustrating time for me because i just despite all the new data i still hear patients frustrated when they say oh you know what my doctor or my nurse practitioner or my physician’s assistant told me i
Didn’t need antibiotics right now and there’s this sense of frustration just remember that when that happens that an encounter that may be to protect you because the conditions these antibiotics are prescribed for there’s pretty good data in many of these cases like a simple sinusitis antibiotics aren’t needed well and that these are probably the biggest instance
Where that where antibiotics are being prescribed somebody has an upper respiratory tract infection the doctor goal while you you may have sinusitis to boom put them on a naboo the common cold right and and the problem is your body builds up a resistance so when you get another infection we can’t give you this antibiotics biotic anymore because your body doesn’t
Care about it like it’s it’s able to just go ahead and proceed with the infection so we have to give you something stronger so we’re trying to protect you from that particular situation and the takeaway here is that antibiotics absolutely in scenarios absolutely can be life-saving still very important in the treatment of bacterial infections but as a consumer of
Health care as a patient every time you get an antibiotic prescription you just ask your health care provider okay is this the best choice what exactly are we treating here and if the answer is i’m not really sure let’s let’s talk a little more here then let’s figure out what we’re trying to treat you
Transcribed from video
Common Antibiotics with a Dangerous Side Effect? By The Doctors
