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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

People venting anger at doctors not prescribing antibiotics for viral infections

69 replies

MummyDuckAndDuckling · 13/12/2013 12:05

I am in no way medically trained but feel like I know the difference between a viral infection and a proper 'needs treated with antibiotics' type infection. I have a friend who is constantly slagging off every medical person they come across over her pfb. This week he's been loaded with the cold and has developed a cough. Yes it's hard to see an under 1 year old ill but it's part and parcel of this time of year. I and a few others have gave her some advice on things that may help him but he will just have to ride it out. But of course she's had him at the GP twice this week and then ranted that she's just been fobbed off with 'viral'. She's going crazy and saying that no one is taking her seriously and that he's suffering.

AIBU to be irritated with people who believe antibiotics should be prescribed for everything?!

OP posts:

JemimaPuddle · 13/12/2013 12:09

YANBU I have a neighbour who is the same, constantly has her dd at docs and is livid when she's told it's viral & not given a prescription.

She keeps going back until she gets them, her dd had had 16 courses of ABs by the time she was 2.5

WooWooOwl · 13/12/2013 12:09

Yanbu.

I understand the frustration when you can see someone you love suffering, especially a baby, but if medication doesn't exist to fix it, then you can't expect to be given it.

Some people are just a bit thick.

Original poster

MummyDuckAndDuckling · 13/12/2013 12:13

Thank you. I was beginning to wonder if I was just being cruel about it but surly when the time comes and dc does need antibiotics for something then it will prove far more effective at fighting infection off if they haven't just been given them willy nilly before.

OP posts:

Gruntfuttock · 13/12/2013 12:29

YANBU. It's the overprescribing and misuse of antibiotics that is responsible for the superbugs. Sheer ignorance to think antibiotics will treat a viral infection. I think that any doctors who pander to this ignorance and badgering and prescribe antibiotics for patients whose conditions do not merit them, are very very wrong indeed and are not doing their job properly and ethically.

Gruntfuttock · 13/12/2013 12:31

Btw, when I mentioned 'misuse' above, I meant when people stop taking antibiotics for their bacterial infection when the symptoms clear up, instead of finishing the course, thereby leading to mutations.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 13/12/2013 12:42

Doctors need to be able to prescribe Obecalp for people like this - it is the perfect medication for them.

Obecalp is placebo, backwards!

Weegiemum · 13/12/2013 12:46

It's an urban myth among GPs that a doctor once got in trouble for prescribing "ADT" to a revolving door patient.

It stood for "Any Damn Thing", apparantly!

TyrannisedByToddlers · 13/12/2013 13:01

YANBU. An otherwise perfectly reasonable mum I know announced that she had taken her poorly child to the GP and insisted she wasn't leaving until she got a prescription for him.

CrohnicallySick · 13/12/2013 13:04

I agree, but I do think that more effort should be made to make patients aware of what they can do to help their child instead of meds.

For example, DD (1) had a cough. I went to the pharmacy for advice, who said there was nothing they could give me.

She got worse (coughing until she was sick, chest rattling between coughs) so I took her to the doctors (not really expecting a prescription, but I was worried in case it was turning into something more serious like a chest infection). They also said there was nothing they could do.

I then spoke to an HV who gave me a load of useful tips like using snufflebabe on her chest, a bowl of water in her bedroom, raising the head of the mattress, warm honey and lemon drink, etc.

Why the pharmacist couldn't have given me some advice like that in the first place, I do not know! And told me the warning signs to watch out for so I would know when she needed medical help, and when she would be fine.

Pobblewhohasnotoes · 13/12/2013 13:09

YANBU.

However the GPs that hand out antibiotics like sweets are just as bad. Oh and the people that get antibiotics and don't finish the course. It's all just increasing resistance.

neverputasockinatoaster · 13/12/2013 13:54

I am experiencing this from a different angle. I am currently off sick and have been for a week now. I have a throat and ear infection.

I went to the DRson Monday and was told - it's viral. I was fine with that - I believe ABs are over used and I understand they don't help in the case of viral infections.

Couple of days he said. Wednesday morning my DH sent me back to the DR. I was getting worse not better I now have a bacterial infection.

I am prepared to accept that the virus may have led onto a bacterial infection but I feel as if the backlash against over use is to deny them as much as possible.

Cookethenook · 13/12/2013 14:30

Even more annoying is doctors fobbing people off with anti b's to shut them up instead of offering useful and practical advice.

AphraBane · 13/12/2013 14:36

"I am in no way medically trained but feel like I know the difference between a viral infection and a proper 'needs treated with antibiotics' type infection."

I'm not sure you do, actually. I live in Germany, where you can only generally get antibiotics after the results of a blood test have shown a bacterial infection. This is surely the best option, because then you know for sure it is only used when appropriate. And there have been several times when I have felt aboslutely rotten for a while in that 'not clearing up' bacterial sort of way, had a blood test, and it was a virus after all - just one that took three/four weeks to clear. But it felt exactly the same as bacterial infections I've had in the past - in the UK the GP would probably have prescribed ABs for it nonetheless for no reason.

German doctors are, however, not obliged by law to give a blood test. Last year I had a utterly foul bout of cystitis and the symptoms were so obvious that my GP gave me a prescription straight away - cystitis started clearing then within hours.

happytalk13 · 13/12/2013 14:37

YANBU - there are a lot of people out there who don't even know that antibiotics do not treat viral infections.

I think there should be something out there to inform patients about these common viruses and when to actually become concerned...something that's easily accessible....oh, wait....don't the NHS have a website for this kind of thing? [hmmm]

Although to be fair not everyone has internet access...but the chemists, don't they have leaflets on this stuff?

Golddigger · 13/12/2013 14:41

I personally only use pharmicists for the simplest of advice.

PrincessScrumpy · 13/12/2013 14:42

I do know mums like in the op and they are also the mums who seem to be at the gps every other week when their dc has a snuffle, or poos out tomato skin so must have a food allergy. I do worry I'm too laid back sometimes but I just reach of the calpol and give cuddles and fluids. I'm hoping that if it was more serious I would know. dd3 has had a terrible cough for over 2 weeks so I called and spoke to my GP rather than making an appointment and he decided he wanted to see her - there's a family history of asthma and she was prem so he wanted to check her over. It was viral but at least I had peace of mind. I think we've only had abs 2 times for dd1 who is almost 6 and dtds haven't had any yet at 2yo but they don't go to nursery so less germs maybe?

TheBigJessie · 13/12/2013 14:46

I don't understand why so many people still demand anti-biotics for colds.

Where the hell have they been for twenty years?

Sirzy · 13/12/2013 14:48

Yanbu.

I get really annoyed when people use the "it's only a virus" line though. Viral infections can be jus has severe as bacterial but harder to treat a lot of the time.

"Just a virus" nearly killed Ds

bunnybing · 13/12/2013 14:50

I agree - my DD my dd had a chronic autoimmune disease I had someone saying to me 'you want to ask for antibiotics'.
There's no point I said, antibiotics won't do anything for it, believe me.
Oh you don't want to listen to that, she said, when my Ellie had a cough I demanded antibiotics, saying I wasn't going to let her go to her dad's at half term unless she had them. The gp apparently prescribed her them then!

3bunnies · 13/12/2013 15:01

I wish that there were some more accessible people to check for chest infections. I personally can't tell. Obviously if it is just a snuffle then I chuck them off to school, but when it is a cough and a fever it is less clear cut. Ds currently does have a chest infection and antibiotics but he has more energy and seems less ill than they have sometimes when they have had a virus. I think that often there is a feeling that it is 'just a virus' and so something of a lesser illness - but measles, chicken pox etc are all viruses so you can feel rotten with a virus, it is just that antibiotics are not appropriate treatments for them. So YANBU that antibiotics should not be prescribed for everything but if she is concerned then she should still have access to someone to check as a virus isn't always a lesser sort of an illness and YABU to say that you can tell without medical training and a proper assessment.

TheBigJessie · 13/12/2013 15:10

A lot of the time, you can tell. For example, I used to get lots of viral infections. I knew they were viral, because I remembered the fecking cold that they started with!

MyHuckingFormones · 13/12/2013 15:22

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

bruffin · 13/12/2013 15:34

My ds 18 had chronic sinusitis when he was 9. It took over 6 months to get a diagnosis, he had mri scans, eye tests, eeg tests and all it turned out to be was a sinus infection that showed up on the MRI scan. Poor kid was in pain with headaches for all that time and just needed ABs.
I know when he is getting a sinus infection, his breath smells etc but even then i have had gps turn him down for ABs until i pointed out that it took an MRI scan to diagnose it last time. He hasnt had it that many times but you would think they would take his history into consideration.

happytalk13 · 13/12/2013 16:26

Szry - I agree, viruses can be just as lethal - RSV season is here and that's no picnic if it gets out of hand.

Gold - I also agree with that, basic information sought from the mouths of pharmacists - but surely they could have leaflets published by the NHS about antibiotics and how they don't work on viruses and signs to look for when a cold etc is actually getting out of hand? It's all right there on the NHS website and since a lot of people will shoot off to the chemists first the leaflets could be right there for people to take with them if they're not internet inclined and possibly cut down on the amount of people needlessly going to the GP.

MedusaIsHavingaBadHairday · 13/12/2013 17:07

On the other hand, when the GP goes 'it's viral' and 24 hrs later your daughter is blue lighted to hospital because the very nasty bacterial tonsilitis has actually closed her airway... because he 'doesn't believe in antibiotics for tonsilitis'... you get a tad annoyed as a parent.

My DD1 is currently hospitalised, on IV antibiotics, drip, morphine and seriously unwell precisely because the locum GP who didn't bother to check her history of severe bacterial tonsilitis, decided she didn't need them.

She nearly died. She is a medical student and doesn't want to take endless antibiotics either, but until they take them out, most of her bouts need them.

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