I caved a few weeks ago and went to see a doctor to get an antibiotic. It goes against much of what I believe, which is, if you can avoid an antibiotic, do it. One should reserve that stuff for when it might really be needed.
Long story short, I ended up with a sinus infection sometime in March; woke up Easter morning to an awful smell that I would later find out was only something *I* could smell. (If you have ever had a dog with hot spots, imagine that smell (and taste), in your head, all the time). I chose to fight the infection on my own with some good old, self-produced, antibodies. I did okay for a couple of weeks and then had an allergy flare up; managed that a bit but it all ended up in my lungs too. A few more weeks of that and I realized I needed to do something because I was desperate to not have this infection while traveling (no body wants to share this crap). So...to a medical person I went...
If you ever hear me say, "I'll just pop into a Walgreen's clinic instead of hitting up my doctor", stop me. I am in no way saying or indicating that the Walgreen's clinics are bad. I an just not a particularly patient individual, that is all. So anyway, after seeing a medical professional, and getting my prescription, and then taking it for the designated 10 days, I haven't had any signs that I have an infection anymore. Thankfully.
Hopefully I can be spared the need to have anymore of those for a long time. And to be honest, the whole point of my writing ANY of this down is that I might be able to one day be able to recall the last time I would have had an antibiotic. I was asked during my appointment and thankfully couldn't actually recall!
Also, there was a terrifying report over at Reuters...
http://reut.rs/25ozTXH
