[epcoa]

> get antibiotics unless you absolutely need them.

Yes that’s exactly how it should be. They are not at all benign misprescribed.

> Even when I had a lung issue for 2 weeks I had to beg to get antibiotics.

Was there any evidence of a bacterial infection or did they just give in? 2 weeks is not a long time for a viral respiratory illness either.

[dillydogg]

I find this is so frustrating to describe to patients. There really is a limited scope of appropriate outpatient antibiotic use.

[_zoltan_]

they didn't give in, but I actually checked hospital internal guidelines for doctors, and it states 3 weeks.

They could have done some more tests or whatever, as it was maybe the worst lung issue I've had and I was really miserable. I knew that antibiotics would help, and they did. I sourced them myself.

You could say lucky guess, but after I complained to my health insurer about the bad doctor's visit, they covered the cost fully without any dispute, so they must have agreed with me with at least about maybe running some more tests...

[gus_massa]

If it was "only" [1] a viral disease, it should dissapear even without antibiotics after a week or two. So perhaps your body solved the problem alone, while you took antibiotics that had no effect.

This is a real posibility and is a real problem to test how useful the medicines are. So all serious studies use a control group [2] to compare the rate of spontanous healing with the rate of healing with the antibiotic.

[1] Some virus are very nasty and can kill you. People confuse the common cold andd the flu, but usualy the flu is much worse.

[2] Preferabely a preregistered double blind randomized control group, becuse there are a lot of other problem that can cause a false result.

[trallnag]

What kind of evidence are you expecting? Many diseases are treated with antibiotics without definitive evidence via some kind of test. Often, evaluating symptoms is deemed sufficient. For example, in the case of Erysipelas, an infection of the skin

[epcoa]

The commenter did not expound on any specific evidence that would suggest a bacterial lung infection. 2 weeks of malaise and non specific upper respiratory symptoms is not strong evidence of a bacterial pneumonia, sorry.

For external infections, observation by visible inspection is still evidence, a sign, not a symptom. So, not sure what your point is. Erysipelas is invariably diagnosed by signs, not symptoms. Very rarely are bacterial infections diagnosed by symptoms alone.

[trallnag]

The difference between symptoms and signs was unclear to me. Just checked. Thanks