Anyone know how long it takes for antibiotics to clear a chest infection?

[messylittlemonkey]

I'm on day three of a five day course of Amoxcycillin (sp?).

I went down with flu almost a fortnight ago which started with a horrendous cough. Went through the various stages of feeling VERY unwell and saw GP after a week or so as was feeling so horrid.

Anyway, I'm feeling generaly better in many ways, but GP said my chest sounded 'bronchitic' and prescribed ABs.
I'm not sure how long they take to work, but would have thought 72 hours would have been long enough but my chest is still wheezing/rattling and painful on one side.

does anyone know? Thanks :)

DH and I both have had the flu/virus with the horrendous cough. Mine went to my sinuses but DH to his chest. First lot of anti biotics Amoxcycillin gave him an allergic reaction was then put on Erythromycin. He finished the course a week ago but had a relapse early Saturday morning raging fever shaking all over very scary. I took him ot local Poly Clinic Saturday morning and Doctor we saw said he still had the infection and put him on a 10 day course of Ciprofloxacin which is a much stronger anti biotic.

I would have thought that your chest would have been a bit better after 3 days so I would finish the course and then go back to your GP and hopefully they will give you soemthing stronger.

I has something similar around Christmas. The first lot of antibiotics did relieve some of the symptoms - in that I didn't feel quite as dead - but I still needed painkillers for the pain. It turned out I had pleurisy as well. The second course of antibiotics and codeine tablets cleared it up finally but it did take quite a while.

I would go back to the doctors if you are still in pain and wheezing. You might just need some painkillers but you might need a second course of ab's.

I had something similar, amoxycillin just wasn't strong enough. I then got claritomycin which had a noticeable impact after 48 hours. I would go back to GP and discuss whether different anti-biotics might be appropriate. In case GP wants to prescribe erythromycin ask for claritomycin, as erythromycin has lots of unpleasant side effects (vomitting, nausea, diarrhoea etc.). I would also ask for chest X-ray. Good luck.

Thank you everyone.

I've called GP this morning and waiting for him to ring back.

There's no improvement whatsoever and if anything it feels worse - pain in chest, wheezing, short of breath when I took my DD1 to school this morning.

I had something like this about ten years ago which after several rounds of antibiotics turned out to be pleurisy. I think I've had one 'normal' chest infection since then too which cleared with amoxycillin.

I'm just fed up it now!

Grrrrr, bloody GP.

He just called and I explained how I'm feeling.

He said that there should be some improvement after 72 hours of antibiotics, then went on to say that I should have been given a 7 day course instead of a 5 day course and he will give me an extra two day's supply. He also said to give it another 48 hours before going back in to see him.

I'm so frustrated. The Amoxycillin obviously isn't working, so not sure why I'm getting more of it!

Oh well, my hands are tied, I'll just have to put up with it for another day or two :(

or see a different GP. If the amoxycillin isn't improving anything at all, then chances are the bacterial infection is resistant to it (a common enough scenario) and you will probably need a different antibiotic. It can take longer than 3 days to shift - more like 5, but you should still have noticed an improvement by now.

I don't let my GP even start me on Amoxycillin as it has never worked on any chest infection I've had - I usually get some variety of erythromycin instead.

Watch out for thrush though...

Thanks Thumbdawitch

Just don't know what to do for the best really.

Think I'll make an appointment for tomorrow with a different GP, then I'll have taken four days of Amoxycillin and if there's no improvement, then I would say that's fairly certainly not doing the job!

I've already got thrush unfortunately, always gets me!

It's just dawned on me that I probably have pleurisy again, having had it once before.

I recognise the symptoms now I think about it -sharp pain in chest, worse when breathing in but hurts all of the time and is painful to the touch or when I move, shallow breathing, wheezing

I have made GP appt for tomorrow and will say what I think it is.