It wasn't ment that way.
The vaccination conspiracy theorists are the opposite evil here. They are even worse.
I didn't want to say that I would not give my kid antibiotics. This is bullshit. But I will change the doctor if his only solution is antibiotics. I had that situation already with my girlfriend. She is ill pretty often. She works in a kindergarden and parents tent to get rid of their sick kids by sending them there. She had to change her doctor because it just did not work out and sometimes the solution is simply to stay home for a few days and drink some warm tea.
There is no easy solution here. You can't say that you refuse all kinds of medication but you have to find out which doctor is really trying to help you out here and this can be only done through experience.
I for myself am just lucky. I can't say how but it works.
If I ever get really sick and the 3 days on tea won't help, I will go to the doctor I trust and get some medication to cure it.
I'm Norwegian. Norwegian doctors at least used to be extremely careful about anti-biotics. I now live in the UK, and the doctors here often prescribe anti-biotics after telling us we most likely have a viral infection.
I think the main thing is to challenge them to explain why. If they can't give a coherent explanation, ask them to explain to you what they think the risks are of waiting.
Most of the time when doctors here want to prescribe anti-biotics their answer is pretty much "just in case I missed something and it's actually a bacterial infection", and usually they'll then concede that if I'm ok with it, I can wait it out a couple of days and only take antibiotics if things doesn't start to improve with minimal risk. A couple of times the explanation has been that they've often seen specific symptoms exacerbated by a simultaneous bacterial infection, but again their response has been the same: if I don't keep getting worse, I'm fine to wait.
The only time I've ended up taking the antibiotics on offer was when I came in once spitting blood and with massive white lumps at the back of my throat (from whence the blood came, as they were ripped open when I coughed). Yay. Even then the doctor assumed, probably correctly, that it most likely was a viral infection that was making the rounds - she had a steady stream of the same symptoms that week -, but pointed out that given that my throat was so swollen and painful that I could hardly even drink, and the coughing of blood, if she was wrong and it got worse without antibiotics, next stop might be the hospital.
But of course few people care - they don't question the reasons for prescriptions at all.
Part of the high level of prescription of antibiotics in the UK is because of the health system here - they're paid per roughly per patient (adjusted for patient age, morbidity levels in the area they operate in, and a number of other factors meant to adjust for the cost of providing service, but the point is they are not paid per patient visit). If they get me out the door quickly and I don't come back, that's a win for them, so they are incentivised to get me well, but there's no downside to them short term from doing so by prescribing me something there might only be a 5% change that will make a difference to me at all - that's five percent fewer repeat visits at no real risk to them.
Few patients will complain, as the prescription cost is low, and when they get better in a few days, many of them will assume it was the antibiotics and so assume the doctor was right.
It's hard to set rules that prevent these kind of incentives, other than monitoring of whether or not they are in line with guidelines and/or whether or not they prescribe grossly more than the baseline.
Yes! I think so many of the problems in the world are because people have become too specialized. Nobody really understands how to do basic maintenance on their car anymore, what's happening with their data on the Internet, why their politicians make the decisions they do, or what their doctors are prescribing them and why. Capitalism pushes us so much in the direction of specialization (with good reasons), but I think we need to step back often and make sure we still have some good general understanding of the world.
>> The only time I've ended up taking the antibiotics on offer was when I came in once spitting blood and with massive white lumps at the back of my throat (from whence the blood came, as they were ripped open when I coughed).
As a side note, it sounds like you were probably at pretty high risk for a secondary infection through the wounds, as well - possibly another reason they prescribed antibiotics.
Thank you for outlining the basics of how we can ask questions of our doctors without feeling (or sounding) like we are saying "I don't trust you to know what you're doing". As you point out, often the doctors DO have reasons, but sometimes they might do it because if they don't, other patients will complain that the doctor "didn't do anything".
When we're sick or worried, it's easy to forget to ask these questions. I don't even manage to ask them of my car mechanic.
I didn't want to say that I would not give my kid antibiotics. This is bullshit. But I will change the doctor if his only solution is antibiotics. I had that situation already with my girlfriend. She is ill pretty often. She works in a kindergarden and parents tent to get rid of their sick kids by sending them there. She had to change her doctor because it just did not work out and sometimes the solution is simply to stay home for a few days and drink some warm tea.
There is no easy solution here. You can't say that you refuse all kinds of medication but you have to find out which doctor is really trying to help you out here and this can be only done through experience.
I for myself am just lucky. I can't say how but it works. If I ever get really sick and the 3 days on tea won't help, I will go to the doctor I trust and get some medication to cure it.