Over The Counter Antibiotics – How Self Prescribed Over The Counter Antibiotics Can Kill You

Over-the-counter (OTC) antibiotics, also known as oral antibiotics, are a class of powerful drugs or medications used to treat bacterial diseases. According to medical news today, antibiotics can’t be used to treat viral infections like coughs, flu, or colds. In this post, we will be discussing how self-prescribed over the counter antibiotics can kill you if not used properly. Self medication is referred to as an area of healthcare whereby the patient takes on a greater degree of responsibility for the treatment of a minor ailment, using pharmaceutical products that are often available without a physician’s or doctor’s prescription.

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Classes/Groups of Antibiotics

Class	Examples
Penicillins	amoxicillin (Amoxil)
Macrolides	azithromycin (Zithromax) and erythromycin (Ery-Tab)
Cephalosporins	cephalexin (Keflex) and cefdinir (Omnicef)
Fluoroquinolones	ciprofloxacin (Cipro) and levofloxacin (Levaquin)
Beta-lactams with increased activity	amoxicillin/clavulanate (Augmentin)
Urinary anti-infectives	nitrofurantoin (Macrobid)
Lincosamides	clindamycin (Cleocin)

When used properly, antibiotics are powerful medications that treat certain infections and save lives. They could either stop bacteria from reproducing or destroy them completely. Naturally, before bacteria can multiply and cause health related symptoms, the body immune system can typically kill them. The body White blood cells (also known as WBCs) attack harmful bacteria — even when symptoms occur, the body immune system can usually cope and fend off the rising infection.

In some cases, the number of these unwanted, harmful bacteria is excessive, and the body immune system cannot clear them all. This is where antibiotics come to the rescue. According to medical history, the first antibiotic was penicillin. This group of Penicillin-based antibiotics, which includes ampicillin, amoxicillin, and penicillin G, are still available up to today to treat a wide area of infections. There are modern antibiotics that are also available, and this may or may not include the topical antibiotics are readily available in over-the-counter (OTC) creams and ointments.

How Over the Counter Antibiotics Work

Over-the-counter antibiotics are divided into two groups based on their functions. Namely;

—Bactericidal over the counter antibiotics, these includes also penicillin-based antibiotics which kills the bacteria. These drugs achieve this function by interfering with either the formation of the bacterial cell wall or its cell contents.
—Bacteriostatic over the counter antibiotics which stops bacteria from multiplying in the body.

The Emerging Threat

A growing number of former “prescription-only” medical products are now available over-the-counter in many pharmacies and retail outlets all over the country, thus widening the range and extent of accessibility of these products to the common populace. However, self-prescribed over-the-counter antibiotics remains far from being a safe medical practice, both in theory or in practice, a person who’s not trained shouldn’t do the prescribing, assumption of a symptom’s disease is not the same as medical diagnosis.

How Self-Prescribed Over the Counter Antibiotics Can Kill You

In Nigeria, a typical medical student spends at least 6 years in school before his/her medical practice, some 7 years. A question I do have for self-medication practitioners is: how do you collapse 6 to 7 years of training into one (1) and expect to not make mistakes in your “practice”? Ideally, self medication ought to be for the management of minor or common illnesses, in pursuit of your pharmacist prescription and not one’s assumptions. Some risks involved in self-prescribed over-the-counter antibiotics include:

Body Antibiotics Resistance

Body antibiotic resistance is an ill-effect case that occurs when germs no longer respond to the antibiotic designed to kill them. The Inappropriate self-prescription of over-the-counter antibiotics is driving up the incidence of antibiotic resistance. Sometimes, this may be prescriptions of the wrong medication , or the wrong dosage which can lead to antibiotic misuse. Over-the-counter antibiotics misuse could also result from who failed to take antibiotics as their doctor prescribed. Some people don’t finish the treatment course and even share with a family member or friend when they discover the relative exhibit the same symptoms. This is not advised, kindly desist from such act.

Ruining Your Medical “Hope” Through Excessive Unsupervised Use of Over-the-Counter Antibiotics

In the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that in the United States alone, around 47 million antibiotic courses are inappropriately prescribed to people, this means they were prescribed antibiotics even when their illness did not require antibiotics. A feared result of this is tha,t some bacteria biologically known as Enterobacterales, can become resistant to carbapenems. These are last-line of defense major class of antibiotics. This is termed carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales, (CRE). When this happens, there is trouble. Because, Enterobacterales fall under a group of bacteria that can cause pneumonia, meningitis, and other diseases. The famous E.coli (Escherichia coli) is an example of an Enterobacterale. CRE pose a major concern to both medical practitioners and patients in hospitals and other healthcare environments. Medical experts have linked carbapenem resistance in the body to lead to following:

1. A greater incidence of disease or reoccurrence of disease in the body.
2. A reduction in the effectiveness of initial antibiotic therapy.
3. Poorer outcomes in body treatment response.

Depletion of White Blood Cells (SCFAs) in the Blood

A new study from Case Western Reserve University shows that antibiotics can damage immune cells and worsen oral infections. While carrying out the research, the team of scientist discovered that the antibiotics destroyed the good bacteria, which, consequently, depleted the production of SCFAs and damaged the ability of white blood cells from fighting off fungal infections, such as Candida, in a laboratory setting. the long-term and unsupervised use of antibiotics by a person could really harm the body immune system and its works in fighting viral and other fungal infections and making them harder to treat.

Autoimmune Disease

Autoimmune disease is when the body’s immune system (natural defense system) can’t tell the difference between your own cells and foreign cells, causing the body to mistakenly attack normal cells. Currently, there are more than 80 types of autoimmune diseases that affect a wide range of body parts. Certain medications like antibiotics, when misused can trigger drug-induced lupus, which is often a more benign form of lupus.

Medical Case Misdiagnosis

According to the justia article, A misdiagnosis case could be a wrong diagnosis, a missed diagnosis, a delayed diagnosis, or a failure to recognize complications that change or aggravate an existing condition. It is said that sometimes a doctor diagnoses one condition correctly but misdiagnoses another condition or fails to realize that there is a second diagnosis that needs to be made. Consider this: if a medical professional can make this error, how much more can a layperson?

Excessive/Improper Drug Dosage

Experts ascribe these to pharmaceutical malpractice, but not when it is done by an unprofessional patient or person. Prescription errors can result in serious injury and death. A person can prescribe an incorrect dose and these errors can result in serious health complications, including allergic reactions, organ damage caused by an overdose, infection, stroke, heart failure, and even death. Even medical doctors and pharmacists must follow strict regulations in order to prevent mistakes. Excessive or improper drug dosage is another way how self-prescribed medications can kill you.

Unhealthy Extended Drug Usage

Long-term drug use can have serious effects of drugs on the body. Chronic abuse can lead to a variety of problems and diseases. This can be the result of unhealthy and extended drug or pill usage. It is advised to always follow the directives of a licensed medical expert.

Unsafe Drug Interactions.

It is very much advised by medical doctors and practitioners in the medical field to restrict patients and people with unverified health symptoms until the underlining causes are well known. The unsafe interaction between yourself and unsupervised drugs can kill you.

CONCLUSION

Parts of the body that suffer due to the effects of these risks are often the heart (which is the engine of the body), the kidney, and the liver, Knowing the number of deaths due to drug overdose and abuse is heartbreaking. More on the obvious: how self-prescribed over-the-counter antibiotics can easily lead to death, but thankfully and hopefully, you now understand how this act can kill you after reading this. Leave us a comment if you must.

References Sources

1. Ruiz M. E. (2010). Risks of self-medication practices. Current drug safety, 5(4), 315–323.
2. Hughes, C. M., McElnay, J. C., & Fleming, G. F. (2001). Benefits and risks of self medication. Drug safety, 24(14), 1027–1037.