What are the Antibiotic Resistances to Cold?

Antibiotic resistance is what happens when many think that the ‘wonder-drug’ antibiotic can cure just about anything and everything. For diseases such as the common cold, the flu, and many coughs, antibiotic is one medicine that worsens the situation rather than helping it.

Antibiotic resistance is most commonly occurred when patients conduct self-diagnoses. This is usually seen in cases where the fever lasts for more than five days or the patient discharges coloured thick mucus from the nostrils. Often, this also happens because the patient misunderstands the symptoms as of those belonging to pneumonia and strep throat. The resistance forms when the antibiotics harm beneficial bacteria colonies in the course of trying to cure the cold. This results in the antibiotics shaping a more hospitable environment to the viruses by clearing the beneficial bacteria out of the way. Apart from causing resistance to antibiotics, this can also cause severe side-effects of diarrhea, vomiting and infections. This happens because antibiotics are especially designed to combat against bacteria, not virus. Many antibiotics also operate by destroying and targeting the cell wall – a fact which makes virus immune to assaults because viruses do not even have cell walls. Thus, antibiotics should be taken with a doctor’s recommendation on the severity of the case.