Sorry that happened to you, Carolyn.
I just think that particularly antibiotics (as well as other drugs) are way overprescribed! Even studies through conventional medical professionals (not us kooky naturopaths
) gave a chance of infection of dog bites of 10 to 15 %. If 100 patients with dog bite wounds are given oral antibiotics, on average 84 patients would escape infection regardless of therapy, 9 will become infected despite medication, and 7 will avoid infection because of the medication.
Is it worth treating 100 patients with antibiotics to prevent infection in seven? I would say it is up to the individual to judge that. I didn't think that a 7 in 100 chance to contract an infection would justify for my body to get bombarded with a powerful drug as an antibiotic is. Weighing the risks and potential benefit I am more concerned about overprescription of antibiotics.
This is according to the CDCP:
"The widespread, often inappropriate, prescription of antibiotics has caused a worldwide health crisis. Drug-resistant strains of bacteria have emerged because antibiotics kill only some organisms leaving others to multiply and evolve into strains that are untreatable. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP), Patients infected with drug-resistant organisms are more likely to require hospitalization, have a longer hospital stay, and die. The pharmaceutical industrys response has been to go back to the lab and produce a more powerful, broad-spectrum antibiotic which in turn becomes ineffective. The CDCP reports that the use of older antimicrobial drugs such as penicillin has decreased, while there has been a major increase in the prescription of the newer, more expensive drugs, such as amoxicillin and the more expensive and broader-spectrum drugs like cephalosporins. In the past decade there has been a concurrent dramatic rise in cases of ear infection (otitis media) in children and acute and chronic sinusitis in people over the age of 15 years. In short, the bugs are winning."
As I said before, there is no single right or wrong. Antibiotics and other drugs can be life savers, IF prescribed correctly.
I hope your thumb gets better!
