Can I take Ciproflaxacin for Strep throat?

Question

Hi. Will Cipro 800mg get rid of strep throat if taken every 8 hours for 3 days? Thanks.

Answer 1

Due to its elimination half-life, ciprofloxacin is usually administered twice daily and it probably will help to sort out your throat infection although it is inadvisable to take prescription antibiotics without consulting a doctor in the first instance. It may react badly to any other drug you may be taking, there may be side-effects and your system may build up a tolerance to the antibiotic rendering it ineffective against further infection.

Answer 2

You can take anything you want, but it's rather silly, on several grounds. Strep throat is a self-limited illness and its course is not altered very much by antibiotic treatment. The antibiotics are prescribed not to treat the illness but to limit the complication rate. Cipro has poor gram-positive coverage and is more expensive than either penicillin or erythromycin. And there's no evidence at all that your proposed course would alter the rate of complications. There are other antibiotics that do a better job of killing streptococci on a culture plate but are known not to prevent the complications of strep throat, so it would be a huge leap of faith to think Cipro would work.

And finally, it seems you're trying to avoid a trip to the doctor by self-diagnosis and self-treatment. People, and even doctors, are not nearly so good at diagnosing strep vs. other forms of sore throat as they think they are, and I've heard a bunch of them tell me they were different, and "knew" when they had it, only to be proven wrong.