How soon does a tonsil infection clear up when taking antibiotics?
Monday, August 31st, 2009 at
8:09 am
Doctor gave me antibiotics to clear up my tonsil infection. I have been taking them for 4 days now and it doesn’t seem to be clearing. He told me to take them for 10 days but I don’t think they are helping much and should I have seen a little improvement by now.
Filed under: Tonsil Infection
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You have a viral infectiopn. antibitoics should not bemgiven if you do NOT have a bacterial infection
OK…It’s time for a biology lesson. The bugs that cause your infection can be divided into 3 groups: the weaklings, the normals and the superbugs. When you first start taking an antibiotic, the weaklings are the first ones to be killed off. As you continue taking the medication, it builds up to higher levels in your body and the normals begin dying off. Keep taking it and all the normals are finally wiped out and only the strongest, most-resistant critters are left. So, you keep taking the antibiotic, it builds to higher and higher levels in your body and the superbugs finally begin to be effected and begin biting the dust. This is why you never (that’s NEVER) stop taking an antibiotic without a doctor’s permission. If you stop taking the medicine, you give the superbugs permission to take over.
Because so many people were prescibed antibiotics and then stopped taking them before they should have, there are more superbugs causing infections now than there were a decade ago. This might be why it’s taking longer to clear up infections than it used to.
The symptoms are another story. Remember symptoms are just your body’s way of fighting off the germs. If the germs like a temperature of 98.6, your body turns up the heat to 102 to help kill them off. Once the number of bacteria causing your tonsil troubles starts going down, the symptoms should also start to disappear. If you don’t follow the dosage directions and skip pills, etc. the germs and the symptoms will hang on. Sometimes it takes 7 days or more before you’ll start to feel better. There are newer antibiotics that might clear things up quicker but they cost a small fortune and might not be covered by your insurance (if you have insurance).
Be patient. You’re taking antibiotics that were prescribed by a doctor, not magic pills that rose up out of a wizard’s cauldron.