I don't normally frequent this area of TFP, but I'm in my mid-twenties and I've just had my first experience with an aging body which brings me here with questions for the more health-aware...
I've always been the type who tries to avoid anti-biotics and other unnecessary prescriptions at all costs, and I recently got an upper-respiratory infection. In the past, my body has always been able to cope with these sorts of things within 3 - 5 days, and I've never seen a reason to build up an unnecessary immunity to anti-biotics when the immune system is perfectly capable of correcting the problem with rest, plenty of fluids, etc.
This story is different though, after being about as ill as I've ever been for over a week I broke down and filled the prescription my doctor gave me, and I'm happy to report I'm nearly out of the woods. This experience brought up a lot of questions for me, however, about health and the aging process and whatnot. Obviously, the older I get, the less capable my immune system is of dealing with these routine infections... but it got me wondering...
If one absolutely refuses to take medications for these common non-lethal health problems, is it possible that said person will never get well? Just be perpetually ill indefinitely? Or will the immune system always eventually deal with it, it just takes longer and longer the older we get?
In other words, now that I have caved in and taken anti-biotics to deal with this infection (yes, I feel somewhat ashamed and weak), am I now forever doomed to be medication dependent every time I get sick? And will the illnesses continue to be this much worse than I remember them being? (I haven't been sick for 3 years or so....).
Thanks for your time, everyone.