Is it harmful to take antibiotics for a week and then find out you never needed them in the first place?

Harmful.....not really.

Antibiotics wipe out basically all bacteria in your body .... they are not specific to "bad" bacteria. The body has "good bacteria" in the mouth, stomach, vagina, etc. If this good bacteria is wiped out, it could cause a mild yeast infection.

Antibiotics work against different types of bacteria (gram positive bacteria and gram negative bacteria). Some antibiotics completely kill the bacteria (bacterialcidal) and others weaken the bacteria and your immune systems goes in for the final cure. Antibiotics are usually prescribed based on the type of bacteria, severity, age of the person, etc. Part of the body really doesn't play into that.

Different antibiotics kill different bacteria. Some are absorbed, metabolized differently and work better in different body parts.

There are two problems taking necessary antibiotics.

The large scale problem is you put selection on bacteria and they could evolve resistance and spread it to pathogens. A single person is not going to make this happen on a scale that would cause a health threat, but antibiotics have been abused the world over for decades.

Also, you just decimated your normal flora. There are a lot of good bacteria that live pretty much anywhere and everywhere on and in you. And you just killed a lot of them. They will recover on their own eventually.

Harmful - not particularly. The antibiotics may of course affect gastrointestinal bacteria so you might have a bit of discomfort there, but will not do you any harm (human cells do not have cell walls or peptidoglycan for example). These bacteria will of course multiply again after the course of antibiotics.

Yes there are different antibiotics which affect different parts of the body, target particular types of bacteria which can infect different tissues, and for different strains of bacteria.

Yes, there are hundreds of different antibiotics for different kinds of bacteria and different locations.

Taking antibiotics when you don't need them can be a problem. That's why you go to your doctor first and have them examine you and prescribe the proper drug, dose, and length of treatment.

No and no. There are different types of antibiotics but mainly it's which one works best for you (based on past experience) and are you allergic to any of them.

Normally once you end an antibiotic prescription you can't take anymore for a month.

if you take antibiotics too much you can develop "super bugs." that are resistant to the drugs available/necessary to treat the problem. thus making treatment difficult. if not impossible. so you really should only take it if your symptomatic. i.e fever 101.5 or greater, swelling redness, chills, diahhrea/vomiting etc. there is more to diagnosing a true issue then a blood or urine test.

Nope, you will be just fine~~the best advice I can offer is get you some Yogurt and eat it, to replenish those "good bacteria" in your bowels. Cause those pills you took, killed everything going through your digestive tract.

Hey, look at it this way, you are covered!~~coming or going!

it is not really that harmful but maybe later if you needed the antibiotic ,you needed a higher dose to take effect.

Yes. While antibiotic kills bad bacteria that cause the diseases, if you use it when you don't need it, then it kills good bacteria.

antibiotics kill all bacteria...good or bad

eat yogurt or take acidophilis to restore the good bacteria