AboutMary E Scott, RPh, CGP Expertise I am a certified geriatric pharmacist with over 23 years experience as a long-term care consultant to nursing homes. I also do community-based consulting on an individual basis. My facility-based monthly newsletter on pharmacy topics is read by nurses in over 200 long-term care facilities in 5 states.
Experience I received a BS in Pharmacy in 1980 with post-graduate work in public health. I have had a Consultant Pharmacist license since 1984.
Organizations American Society of Consultant Pharmacists .I received certification in geriatric pharmacy in 1998.
Question I need a medication that I can buy over the counter that will have the same effects azithromycim or any other antibiotic if I want to get rid of a infection.
Answer Hi,Nick!
I'm sorry, but there are no oral antibiotics available over the counter to treat infections. There is a good reason for this. Certain antibiotics treat certain infections,and in order to know what kind of infection you have, it is necessary to go to a physician so that he/she can diagnose it according to your symptoms, or the results of diagnostic tests, such as a throat culture or chest Xray.
If you take the wrong antibiotic,you will not treat/eliminate the infection,and it may get worse.
For example, you may think you have bronchitis because you have the same symptoms you had the last time you had bronchitis and you took azithromycin. But you may have a fungal infection of the lungs. If you took azithromycin,you would just have wasted your money and made the fungal infection worse.
Sometimes it can be trial and error to find the best antibiotic,but for my money, I would rather the doctor make the correct diagnosis than depend on my limited diagnostic ability to figure out which antibiotic or antifungal to take. Hope this helps, Mary
