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I'm no medicinologist but, anecdotally, I am convinced that anti biotics help recover from the flu much much faster, and can also help prevent complications.
My home country was pretty lax on drug enforcement, and doctors would prescribe antibiotics if your fever hadn't broken in ~3 days (or sooner if you nagged them enough). Getting started on anti biotics would lead to recovery in a day or two at most.
The govt. bodies are getting stricter now, and it's harder to get antibiotics. Pretty much everyone around me has longer and longer recovery times. In just the last two years, 3 people I know (granted, they're 60-70 year olds) have had to be hospitalized (2 pneumonia, 1 I don't remember) after their condition deteriorated.
I know that's it's widely accepted that antibiotics don't help fight the flu, but it's my pulled-it-out-of-my-ass hypothesis that it does help ward off all the other crap allowing the immune system to fight the viruses more effectively leading to faster recovery.
Also, in my home country we used to get paracetamol/acetaminophen injections when the fever spiked too much. But I'm currently in Canada and the recommended "just eat soup and hydrate" is BS. We're just left to fend for ourselves with no option minimize harm /discomfort/symptoms unless you're on deaths door. I'm guessing that most of the rest of the developed world is like this too?
Sincerely, Suffering from flu
Oh boy. I mean, I guess you’re following the prompt you made…but woof.
Yeah, I know that it sounds ridiculous. I am almost certainly wrong lol. I just want something to make this coughing stop though -- I don't care if it's opium like I'm in the 19th century, or if it's a sugar pill pretending to be an anti viral.
There are drugs to help lessen the symptoms of the flu, paracetamol in particular, but having antibiotics to cure a viral disease will not help in any statistically significant way, barring the placebo effect.
It's believing that playing easy listening radio at a forest fire helps it burn out quicker. Sure there may be times when it appears like it's helped, but in reality it has done nothing.
Pseudoephedrine (decongestant), dextromethorphan (cough suppressant), guafenesin (expectorant), and either ibuprofen or acetaminophen/paracetamol (pain relief/fever reduction). Or some other substitutions.
“Advil Cold and Sinus” is a brand name for the ibuprofen/pseudoephendrine combination over the border in Michigan. I assume you can get it at a pharmacy in Canada, but to get the actually good stuff I’m guessing you have to ask a pharmacist, because at least in the US it’s behind the counter due to pseudoephedrine’s use as a precursor for methamphetamine.
You can get dextromethorphan and guafenesin in cough syrup, though sometimes you can also get it in pill form. Careful, some cough syrups also contain acetaminophen/paracetamol.
You can also go the easy route of DayQuil/NyQuil or equivalents, this is usually effective enough for mild cases but I like to get the pseudoephedrine for the bad ones.
With a viral infection generally the only thing worth doing is fighting the symptoms. Your body will clear the infection with time. Using antibiotics appears to work because the infection was going to clear anyway. So you take the antibiotics and the viral infection goes away, but it would also have gone away had you not taken the antibiotics. But of course you can’t copy yourself and test this.
Edit: Oh, be sure to eat something when you take ibuprofen or your stomach will not be happy with you.