written by: Fendie Syailawan
All of a sudden after getting up, we catch a common cold or flu. Such things happen very often in Jakarta, in which we live in bad air pollution.
What should we do next ? Take over the counter drugs which are easy to get at the nearest pharmacy or just get some more rest, drink plenty of water as much as we can, and take multivitamine as well.
Studies show that most of the flu symptoms such as fever, runny nose, headache, muscle ache, etc are caused by virus that can not be wiped out with antibiotics which is merely used to treat bacterial diseases. But how could we know whether it is virus or bacteria ? A blood culture test takes at least 2 days to determine which bacteria cause the symptoms, whereas detecting virus is not as easy as that of bacterium. It might be checked with PCR or other examinations which are very costly. Blood cell count examination or inflammatory marker can not tell us exactly what we have in our body.
So what is the simplest way to know it ?
We can simply just look into the symptom characteristics we have been experiencing. For instance, fever between 37-38 grade celcius that emerges suddenly and lasts not longer than 10 days is mostly caused by virus. Hence we do not need antibiotics but rather just taking some more rest, drinking a lot of water, and taking some vitamine pills. Because most viral diseases have self limited characteristics than means they can be cured by our own immune system. Several studies show that flu symptoms in tropical region are mostly caused by virus. Moreover, antivirus that ever produced is proved not really useful in treating such a disease.
On the contrary, what if it lasts more than 10 days with higher fever ? When we have cough with green or yellow-like phlegm or runny nose with green or yellow-like color, it might be bacteria playing role as the culprit. Hence we need antibiotics. But antibiotics must be prescibed by a doctor that already undertook necessary blood or phlegm examination. Otherwise bacteria attacking us will commonly become antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the future. This fact has been reported from many hospitals in Jakarta. Therefore, as a clinician i am suggesting not buying antibiotics without doctor's prescription. Most penicillin-group antibiotics have also been reported being resistant in Indonesia. That's all, thank you.
I'll be back again with other interesting topics.
