Sick? Should you see your doctor?
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| Dr. Kenneth Warren does a nerve conduction test on patient Sandy Ayers. |
“If your symptoms seem to be getting worse over a period of a few days instead of stabilizing, you should see your doctor and be evaluated,” says Dr. Ken Warren, a family practice physician. And your need for an antibiotic will depend on what your doctor finds in that evaluation, he adds.
Sometimes it’s hard to determine whether you have a cold that simply needs to run its course, or a more serious infection that needs to be checked by a doctor. Or, it’s hard to know whether your sore throat is actually a bacterial infection, such as strep, that needs treatment with an antibiotic prescribed by your physician. Or, maybe you have an allergy.
Generally, Dr. Warren says, you should see a doctor if…
• Your symptoms get worse or won’t go away.
• You feel a little better, but then you relapse. More serious symptoms then occur, such as nausea and vomiting, high fever, chills, pain in your chest, painful swallowing, or coughing with a thick mucus.
At the clinic, Dr. Warren says, your physician may do tests, such as a strep throat culture or a blood count, to see if your symptoms are the result of a bacterial or a viral infection.
If you have a bacterial infection, you probably will be given an antibiotic to kill the infection, Dr. Warren says. Antibiotics won’t help colds and flu, which are viral infections, unless complications develop, such as ear infections, bronchitis, or another bacterial infection.
Without treatment, a cold or flu will eventually run its course and go away, he says. “Your body has a remarkable ability to fight off things.”
Worried about the overuse of antibiotics, Dr. Warren generally won’t prescribe an antibiotic unless he sees the patient first. “The misuse of antibiotics leads to the development of bacterial strains that are resistant to the drugs,” he says. Antibiotics also have side affects, such as allergic reactions or risking more serious complications in the gastrointestinal tract caused by killing off the good germs, he adds.
Calling West Tennessee part of “the allergy capital of North America,” Dr. Warren also treats a lot of allergies. “Everybody is allergic to some things,” he says. You will not get symptoms, though, unless you come in contact with the allergens or unless your body has just gone over its threshold of how much allergenic exposure it can tolerate.
“You may be able to tolerate house dust with no symptoms,” he explains, “but add a cat or an old pillow and you’re miserable.”
You can take several steps, he says, to lessen that allergen load…
• Wrap your mattress in airtight plastic. (A mattress harbors multiple allergenic materials.)
• Avoid feather pillows.
• Replace your foam or fiber pillows every six months.
• Use proper filters in your heating and air-conditioning units, the kind that filter out smaller particles in the air.
• Don’t smoke and avoid cigarette smoke.
• Wipe rather than stir up house dust.
• Avoid cats. (It’s the dried saliva from cat grooming that is the allergen, he says.)
From over-the-counter antihistamines to getting rid of the cat, from cold-relief medicines to washing your hands frequently to stop the spread of germs, you can take many steps yourself to make you feel better.
“However,” says Dr. Warren, “when your symptoms worsen or simply won’t go away, it’s probably time to call your doctor.”