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Comment by Qantourisc | Hacker News Reader

EDIT: DISCLAIMER: See a doctor, don't take this as advise !

“You should never give an antibiotic to anybody, human or animal, unless they’re ill,”

IIRC that is even wrong !

You shouldn't be using antibiotics unless you have good change to get severely sick or develop (long term, or very bad short term) complications (holes in body due to infection, septicemia, ... )

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Honest mistake but you shouldn't give medical opinions on public forums unless you're a licensed medical doctor. You might convince some poor sap to wait until they're septic to see a doctor.

As someone that's been on IV antibiotics, I can tell you that there's no fucking around with bacterial infections and only a doctor (an infectious disease specialist) can evaluate the situation properly.

Question: Any bacterial foothold should be considered dangerous ?

No, when you have a bacterial infection, you need antibiotics. You can easily die from a tooth infection, if not treated. The issue is with prescribing antibiotics to viral sufferers because doctors want to get to the he next patient.

"You can easily die from a tooth infection, if not treated." That would fall under the "long term complication", dead is a bit of a big complication to most.

Being dead is the complication of an unmitigated bacterial infection.

A person who is sick is not competent to be deciding on a course of treatment, unless they are, say, Paul Farmer. See a doctor; follow the doctor's advice.

They're better than average, but you have to be willing to question what they say. I know too many people who just trusted the doctor and then had the doctor make some minor slip-up that the patient would have caught. Except "minor" means "well, I guess you're this way for life now. sorry".

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