Too scared to take my antibiotics

[livingontheedge]

Hey there, just a bit of background before i get to the main issue here. I've been suffering with mild to severe general anxiety for about a year now which went from being caused by stress at work now manifesting itself into generalised including health anxiety.

Okay so I've had a piercing in my right ear called the anti tragus (it's on the inside thick part of the cartilage) for a year and a half now and it's never really healed properly mainly because I can't avoid not sleeping on it. It would flare up every so often into a small sometimes painful red bump which while alarmed me I tried to justify that it would calm down on its own eventually which it would always do. However two nights ago I must have really rubbed it in my sleep a woke up to a pus bubble surrounding the piercing as well as it being a bit red but not painful. I went to the doctors after showing it to my boyfriend who seemed quite concerned and offered to take me. He said its an infection and he gave me a prescription for clindamycin. Before I even got the tablets I went online to look at the side effects and now Im too scared to take them and don't know what to do. I'm hoping that cleaning the infected area will help but I'm worried to both take the medication or that it might get worse. My ear has started to drain a bit but doesn't hurt but I don't know if anyone here has had an infected piercing before and dealt with it without medication or can give me any guidance at all. Thanks.

[Kuma]

I cannot give you any medical advice, of course -- and nobody on this board should do so.

But if I were in your shoes, I would take the antibiotic if I believe that the doctor who prescribed it for me is competent. Many medications list bad side effects on their packaging, or on line. Most of these side effects are exceedingly rare. But for legal and regulatory reasons, they have to list them. For example, one of the side effects of aspirin may be seizures or death. But how many people take aspirin, and how many of them have seizures or die as a result? Pretty close to zero percent. But they still list these remote risks. So my guess is that the side effects you are reading about are probably exceedingly rare.

Those of us with anxiety tend to materially overestimate risk. I have used this example before on this board, but I think it makes the point: There are folks who have anxiety about driving over a bridge. They convince themselves that it is very risky. They behave as if there were, say, a 40% chance that the bridge will crater while they are on it. So they don't dare try it. But the real risk is, say, one in a hundred million. If the anxious person were better at evaluating risk, she would understand and internalize that the risk of driving over the bridge is trivial, and so would not be afraid to do it. But because she is bad at evaluating risk -- tending to grossly overestimate risks -- she acts "irrationally." The same may be true, for some people, when it comes to decisions about medication.

I cannot tell you whether to take a medication or not. But I would say this: Figure out what the benefit is of taking this medication. Then figure out what the REAL (not imagined or feared) risk is. If you cant figure this out, ask your doctor. If you conclude the benefit is an 80% chance that it will cure your infection so that it does not get worse, and the risk is a one percent chance of a minor side effect and a one in a million chance of a serious side effect, then you will probably decide to take the medication as prescribed. But whatever you decide, base your decision on the real facts -- not the worst case scenarios that we anxious people tend to conjure up.


[This is not medical advice. I am not a doctor. All medical decision should be made after consultation with qualified medical professionals].