It shouldn’t be this hard to get antibiotics!

[JemimaTiggywinkles]

I have tonsillitis. I’ve had it before loads of times, so know what it is. I also know that with antibiotics I’ll be better within a couple of days and back in work on Monday. The last time I delayed getting antibiotics (because I couldn’t face a 4hr+ wait standing in the walk-in when sick) I ended up with complications requiring a hospital stay and an operation.

This morning I tried getting an urgent appointment at the GP and they told me to fill in a form, which then said they’ll get back to me by the end of Monday! It did say there was a triage though so I gave it about 4 hours before giving up on getting a quick response from them.

So an hour ago I tried 111 - they said a clinician will call me back but they can’t say when because they’re really busy. Having been through this process before I know I’ll be waiting (probably) a few hours for a call back only to be told that I need to be seen face to face to get a prescription. If I’m lucky I’ll get seen and a prescription at some point tonight via a walk-in centre (which on a Friday night means waiting for hours with drunk people).

I get that I’m not a life and death case. I get that the NHS is underfunded and the staff are overworked. But there really must be a more efficient way of accessing fairly basic medical care.

Yep, I have had bacterial multiple times, on tbe two occasions the GP refused antibiotics it led to quinsy, the first time I didn’t know what it was so I saw the GP who again fobbed me off and said it was localised swelling due to a viral infection, despite him knowing that was bullshit. I ended up in hospital with sepsis.

Antibiotics generally take 36-48hrs to begin to work.

Antibiotics start to work straight away on the bacteria, although it CAN take a couple of days to feel better. In my experience with tonsillitis (and once with pneumonia), you start to feel better sooner than that. It can then take a few more days to fully improve. The same was confirmed to me by the GP when my son had a course of antibiotics recently - some children start to make an improvement quite quickly.

Unfortunately we can’t afford to give everyone antibiotics, even if it’s bacterial to prevent a tiny amount of people having a complication. Your risk needs to be looked at (eg if you’re immunocompromised/ taking other medication/ have other conditions) as well as your symptoms. So it’s perfectly sensible to seek medical advice and that should be freely available but we need to get away from this idea that we should be having antibiotics every time so we can spend less time being sick and be back at work asap. If ypu
look at countries with more readily available antibiotics they have increased resistance levels and suddenly those with sepsis/ quinsy etc have few/no antibiotic treatment options

It shouldn't be this difficult to get seen by a medical professional so I sympathise there. It SHOULD be difficult to get antibiotics
I agree with this.

Antibiotic resistance is a huge problem, made worse by some doctors giving them out like sweets and some patients stamping their feet until they get their pill of choice.

So you called 111 around 2ish and had had an appointment at the walk-in centre to see a GP in a few hours? I think that's pretty decent to be honest for an admittedly not very nice but not urgent problem.

Lots of misinformation on this thread. You can have reoccurring tonsillitis that is bacterial in nature. I know as I have suffered with it for years (literally came back every 2 weeks and was hospitalised many times over before removal). My son was the same. He also needed removal. And looks like my daughter has the same issue now. Seems there’s also a genetic link.

when I had bacterial tonsillitis it would steadily get worse over time and left me completely bed bound. I was swabbed frequently and it always came back as bacterial in nature. It’s awful.

it is so hard to get minor treatment these days. A simple infection can turn nasty quickly and then you end up needed more intervention than originally needed. That seems to be the NHS at the moment. If you haven’t already do look at signing up for Benenden health care. Cost about £10 a month and you have 24/7 access to GP.

all this talk about antibiotics resistance is irrelevant to the OP. The point is we should be able to access GP appointments for these types of problems and from there the doctors can make the decision as to what is needed. Not suffering at home and hoping for the best.

all this talk about antibiotics resistance is irrelevant to the OP. The point is we should be able to access GP appointments for these types of problems and from there the doctors can make the decision as to what is needed.Not suffering at home and hoping for the best

It is relevant because the question wasn't about it being difficult to get a medical appointment.
It was about whether it should be difficult to get a hold of antibiotics because OP has decided that she knows she needs them.

That's why people are talking about antibiotic resistance because nobody should expect to be able to call up a doctor and get given whatever antibiotics they think they want.