If you are a healthy person with run-of-the-mill flu, you should not ask for antibiotics, and your doctor should certainly not prescribe them. Antibiotics don’t fight viruses, and so they are completely ineffective against the flu. If, however, you have a complication and your viral flu has evolved into a bacterial pneumonia, you should certainly be treated with them. But, and it’s worth repeating, antibiotics do nothing against the flu virus. You would be amazed at how many patients ask for antibiotics when they clearly have a viral infection, and are disappointed when I decline to prescribe
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