Do you trust your doctor...

to do what's best for you, or what's best for them?

I'm currently labouring under one hell of a throat infection, and when I went to see my doctor she pulled out the dreaded prescription notepad and promptly signed me up for some antibiotics. Every single time I've been to the doctor, I've been told to take antibiotics. Granted, I don't see her for every flu and ache - maybe a sum total of twice or thrice a year. But every time it's the same story. So I got to thinking, do we really need these antibiotics for every illness imaginable, or is it simply the easiest and most reassuring medication to give?

A brief googling told me that my concerns were well founded. Every medical website I consulted on the subject said that, in no uncertain terms, that there were very few 'common illnesses' that could be cured with antibiotics. Mostly because flus, infections and such come from viruses rather than bacteria. Antibiotics have no effect on viruses whatsoever. They won't cure your cold, no matter how much you're made to believe the contrary. In fact, if overused for every little ailment, antibiotics do much more harm than good: they make your cells resistant to their effects, making any subsequent bacterial illness much harder to cure and requiring stronger doses to get the job done; eventually a vicious cycle comes to being, and bacteria mutate and become immune to the effects of these drugs. The version I'm taking (for what I think is legitimately a bacterial infection ;) ) combats a whole list of 'resistant' bacteria strains.

I wonder, now, if it's simply become common practice for doctors to prescribe antibiotics for everything because that's what people expect, and because it's become habit. Thanks, Mr Flemming, because after all your discovery was a huge leap in medicine. Now, could someone go out and find a cure for viruses; like, to start off with, the common cold? Doesn't seem like too much to ask. ;)