Concur. This obsession everyone has with taking medications to reduce fevers is bass ackwards.

Most of them are due to viruses anyway, for which antibiotics are useless.

i would never hesitate to treat a bacterial infection with an antibiotic. both my parents had mitral valve replacement surgery due to damage incurred during a bout of rheumatic fever as infants. had the strep infection they had been treated with antibiotics they might both still be alive.

If it is a low grade fever I try to get my daughter to ride it out and just sleep/rest. If it is 103° or higher, I will treat her with a fever reducer such as Tylenol or Motrin.

I wouldn't ever give antibiotics for a fever. I have used them in the past for strep throat. Ear aches I try to give time to heal on their own and they always have. Luckily, she's a very healthy little girl (well, not so little any more, she's almost as tall as me) and we don't have these issues often.

We use fresh garlic medicinally the first sign of any illness, which is a natural antibiotic that does not hurt good bacteria. I swear by it and my sons (10 and 13) have never had an ear infection. My entire family have not had an illness that lasted more than 24 hours. I have learned to continue a few days after symptoms disappear or they can come back.

Used to treat at the first sign of UTI, sore throat, ear ache, congestion and if anyone has an open wound injury.

We let fever run its course but monitor closely. I would take action if it got too high but with natural remedies as long as they worked quickly. We do not use any medications and have not had a need for them.

My entire life has sucked for the past three years thanks to taking an extra strong dose of Levaquin for the flu.

Not only is my liver shot, so I can even enjoy a bit of sake with my sashimi, but it messed up my stomach really bad.

I had no idea, at that time, that I should be taking probiotics with the antibiotic (or that I shouldn't have taken it at all). So now I have leaky gut and small intestinal bacterial overgrowth to deal with (equaling daily symptoms of unpleasantness..leading to severe depression..leading to all my money going to medical bills and trials of everything under the sun). (Note: I have made alot of progress, for the first time, recently).

What it boils down to -I would rather rot in hell then take an antibiotic every again. The only that would compel me is a UTI or something (but I would try everything else first). A fever for a few days would be a gift compared to all the potential problems caused by the antibiotics.

antibiotics should never be used to treat a fever, and even conventional wisdom doesn't prescribe ABX for fevers. Fever reducers such as acetaminophen and ibuprofen are not abx.

in case of a severe infection resulting in a fever abx will help the infection and thus reduce the fever which resulted from the infection.

I've recently gotten into healing oils. My 3 years old started running a 102 fever last week and I used eucalyptus oil (good for fevers, flu, sinus and throat infections). 2 drops of oil + a little coconut oil and rubbed it on her chest and back. I let her ride out the fever and it went away the next day. I refuse to use any "medication" anymore except in extreme, life or death situations. I highly recommend everyone look into homeopathy and natural healing. I mean we all on here agree in the power of good nutrition and it's "healing" so why not take it a step further and look into other natural methods to heal your body and make it stronger :)

Never used antibiotics on my son nor has he had any vaccinations, he has grown up just fine. We just let fevers run as nature intended. If its a life or death situation then drugs are helpful.

Antibiotic misuse and overprescription/overuse is a huge problem and I wish the public in general was more educated about them so they would stop doing things like asking their doctor to prescribe antibiotics for viral illnesses, or for stuff like an ear infection that will go away by itself in a week. But they're still an extremely important treatment for many bacterial diseases (and for certain prophylactic applications) and I don't see why someone would have an issue taking them if there was a genuine need. Even if they do have unpleasant side effects sometimes. I have no issue taking tylenol or whatever either for a fever. I don't enjoy feeling miserable.

This question is confusing though. Most of the time when people talk about giving medication for a fever, they're not referring to antibiotics, they're referring to antipyretics like Ibuprofen. I mean, you need a prescription for antibiotics and a responsible doctor won't prescribe a course of them just like that.

I was always taught to ride out fevers so you don't dampen the bodies immune response... the increased temp is to kill pathogens. Obviously, if it continues more than 5 days then one should investigate alternative methods... but I haven't had experience with that. I usually just ride it out, take extra Vit C and rest and it's usually gone by the 4th or 5th day.

Yes, that's my feeling.

I use tylenol for fever if the person in question is very uncomfortable, or if it's high enough that we'd be considering an ER trip if it didn't come down.

I'll use antibiotics if there is clear evidence of bacterial infection that the body isn't handling well on its own, or for a serious health problem that was suspected of being bacterial in origin (I'm not going to wait on lab results to see if the meningitis is bacterial or viral before starting antibiotics, for example).

In practice, this means I've had antibiotics 3 times as an adult - twice for GBS+ status during pregnancy (which I now feel comfortable handling via alternative means) and once when my eardrum ruptured due to an ear infection. My kids have never had them beyond the shared perinatal dose.