The Secret of Great Health Care
Extra: Antibiotics Safe and Effective Use
This book is meant to complement your understanding of common health issues that are handled by your primary care provider.
It will start by looking at common illness that bring patients into the primary care office. It will not provide an extensive look at this as it is described in another book – Cough, Sniffle, Sneeze: How to Get Optimal Health Care for Common Health Problems.
The book will then look at 6 major classes of commonly used antibiotics, some miscellaneous antibiotics and topical antibiotics that doctors prescribe when you go to the primary care office.
The antibiotics looked at in this course are antibiotics that you take by mouth. A few injection medications that are used in the primary care office will be discussed.
You may be asking yourself why you need to understand antibiotics – that is your doctors job. The short answer is: people’s knowledge strongly influences prescribing patterns of doctors.
In my experience, most people go to the doctor with false perceptions of the ideal antibiotic to treat their infection. One common example is the use of the z-pak. The z-pak is the commonly used term for the antibiotic azithromycin. It is a very good antibiotic, but it gets over used.
The reason that this medication is overused is because it is a once a day antibiotic for five days (some infections can be treated with a three day course). This is convenient for people and is often requested. While the z-pak is commonly a good choice to treat many infections, it is not always the ideal choice. There is currently a lot of resistance to this antibiotic.
A major goal of this book is to educated people about antibiotics and their proper use. I want to inform people, because they have a strong influence over their medical care. If you are armed with proper knowledge you will receive better care.
The objectives of this book are to:
