Patients Are Idiots Four

Not to be outdone by doctors, patients have worries about treatment of a respiratory infection that are specious too.

Amoxicillin is the antibiotic of choice to treat these infections, not the latest most expensive antibiotic to come down the pike. Its inexpensive, well tolerated, goes well with other commonly taken medicines, and more effective than many of the more popular designer antibiotics.

We've seen one case of pharyngeal abscess in a 17 year old boy which would have been a non-event had he been treated with amoxicillin rather than the super new antibiotic he received initially. Anaerobic bacteria are abundant in the oropharynx, and they are often the cause of this complication.

We've read of another similar incident in the well read medical journal, The New York Times, in which the 17 year old boy developed an abscess and subsequently Lhermite's sydrome (as Casey said, you could look it up), which resulted in his death.