Dr Sam Hay explains how to tell if you actually ‘need’ antibiotics

Green snot or not, there’s a good reason your doctor is reluctant to write you a script. Dr Sam Hay explains what you need to know when the sniffles linger. 

Green snot or not, there’s a good reason your doctor is reluctant to write you a script.

If you have a cold right now, chances are you aren’t going to like what I have to say.

When the temperature begins to drop, at least half of my patients are coming to me desperate for a fix to their sniffles or flu, that's writing them off and rendering them useless. While I am sympathetic, and they're desperate and ill, I just can’t write them a script for antibiotics – which only makes some of them angry, and many of them question why – so here are the answers.

I stand firm because, for the common cold and a range of other infections, antibiotics don’t work.

For many ailments, they're a waste of money, and more importantly, taking them when you don’t need them could be making your health worse and impacting on the health of the nation as a whole.

Want to join the family? Sign up to our Kidspot newsletter for more stories like this.

In the past, a 'higher' fever was associated with a 'bacterial' infection, but not anymore. Image: iStock

RELATED: Do kids need a COVID-19 test every time they’re sick?

First up: The facts about antibiotics

Antibiotics only work on infections caused by bacteria. They do not work on infections caused by a virus. A common cold is a virus, so while you feel like crap and want me to do something about it, a prescription for antibiotics is going to do nothing.

For colds, flu, ear infections, sore throats, generally, they’re all but useless. Even if there is a mild bacterial infection brewing, most of the time the body will fight it off without the need for drugs. Of course, if your doctor discovers a full-blown bacterial infection then you will need them.

But what about if you have a fever?

A fever is merely a symptom. A symptom that your immune system is doing its job and fighting the good fight for you. In the past, a 'higher' fever was associated with a 'bacterial' infection. But times have changed, and the medical fraternity is working hard to educate us all that we need to look past the fever and see exactly what's wrong and how sick someone is.

By itself, a fever is just not enough to warrant a dose of antibiotics.

So at this time of year, an annoying fever, and any suffering you or your children are enduring is at the hands of a common cold that, although damn annoying, just needs to run its course.

But what about if you have felt sick for ages?

The longer you feel sick, the higher the chance that you are going to need antibiotics. But before you trot out the “I told you so Doctor Sam” it doesn’t mean you needed them at the start. It means that what began as a viral infection, may now have morphed into something bacterial.

However, even being sick for about seven days still doesn’t tell us absolutely that you need prescriptive medical intervention, as viruses can last this long.

It's not always bout the green snot. Image: iStock

RELATED: ‘Don’t confuse your kid’s cold with COVID’

But what about the deep dark GOO?

We have all heard it from our grandparents or maybe even our parents, the darker the “goo” from the nose or the throat, the sicker you are and the deeper the need for antibiotics.

Sorry Nanna, but the colour of the mucous (the medical term for goo) is not a “be all and end all” indicator of whether an infection is viral or bacterial.

When we are well, mucous is a clear colour. As the immune system does its job, mucous production increases, and it can change colour from white to yellow to green. It can even be brown! Brown usually means there's a little old blood hanging around, either from a little irritation to the lining of the nose, or possibly from the infection itself.

But all of these colour changes occur regardless of whether the issue is viral or bacterial.

However, pair discharge with sinus or facial pain that has been going on for more than a week, and it could be reasonable that you have a bacterial sinus infection requiring antibiotics.

Why your doctor doesn't want to write you a script

It doesn’t sound like an exact science, and it isn’t, but there’s a good reason why doctors are reluctant to just write you a script.

While it has dropped, Australia has amongst the highest rates of antibiotic use in the world.

But the more we pump antibiotics into our system, the more our body becomes immune to those antibiotics. And that gives superbugs free reign to get in with no way of stopping them.

Superbugs are drug-resistant strains of bacteria. If they are drug-resistant, we have no way of stopping them.

It sounds a bit intense. I know you probably don’t care that much about superbugs when you are in the midst of a mountain of Kleenex and a Sydney Harbour of snot.

But sometimes in life there’s not a quick fix. And if the antibiotic you so desperately want isn’t going to do anything, you just don’t need it.

Originally published as Dr Sam Hay explains how to tell if you actually ‘need’ antibiotics