Antibiotics for bronchitis are only considered if your healthcare provider suspects a bacterial infection is causing your bronchitis or you are at elevated risk for a bacterial infection after your bout with viral bronchitis. Pneumonia is one such example.
Read on to find out more about how to treat bronchitis and the medicines used.
ljubaphoto / Getty Images
Bronchitis Basics
Symptoms of bronchitis can last around three weeks after an initial cold. They include:
Most of the time, your bronchitis should resolve on its own. Get in touch with your healthcare provider if you have:
Is It Bronchitis or Pneumonia?
Types of Antibiotics for Bronchitis
Antibiotics should not be used as a first-line treatment for bronchitis. If your practitioner does decide to treat your cough with antibiotics, they’re likely to prescribe:
How Your Healthcare Provider Chooses
Your healthcare provider will only prescribe antibiotics for bronchitis if they think bacteria are causing your symptoms and you’re at high risk of the infection not resolving on its own.
If a virus causes your bronchitis, they won’t give you antibiotics because the antibiotics wouldn’t do anything. If you’re young and generally healthy, they probably won’t prescribe anything either.
A Cochrane report last updated in 2017 found little evidence that antibiotics help acute bronchitis in healthy people, but recommended further study for patients that are elderly, frail, or have other conditions that may make bronchitis worse.
When considering treatment, your healthcare provider will look at:
If your practitioner decides to prescribe an antibiotic, the treatment they choose will be based on your medical history, personal details, symptoms, diagnosis, and test results.
Antibiotics for Cough From Other Causes
The symptoms of pertussis are very similar to those of bronchitis. They include initial cold-like symptoms, including:
In pertussis, especially in those who haven’t been vaccinated, these symptoms worsen and develop into unusual coughing fits with an accompanying high-pitched “whoop” sound. This usually happens one to two weeks after the initial infection.
These coughing fits can cause exhaustion and vomiting, and can last a long time—up to 10 weeks or more. (This infection is called the 100-day cough in China.)
Pertussis infections are treated with antibiotics, and early treatment is essential to ease symptoms and prevent the spread of the disease.
If you’ve got a weird-sounding cough, or develop a cough after a cold and know that you’ve been exposed to whooping cough or that it’s actively spreading in your community, you should call your healthcare provider.Note, however, that they may not want you to come into the office, because whooping cough is highly contagious.
Also, try to stay away from others, especially those too young to be vaccinated. Whooping cough is extremely dangerous to infants.
Antibiotics commonly prescribed to treat pertussis include:
How Long You’ll Take Them
Whenever you’re prescribed antibiotics, you need totake the full courseof drugs, anywhere from seven to 14 days. You need to continue taking them even if you start feeling better before the course is done.
If you stop taking the antibiotic before finishing every dose, the bacteria may come back stronger and resistant to the drug—meaning that type of antibiotic may no longer help your body fight off that infection.
What Happens If You Don’t
Alternative Treatments
Whether you have bacterial or viral acute bronchitis, several other types of treatments, includingnatural remedies, may help soothe your symptoms:
These kinds of treatments won’t take the place of antibiotics if you need them to beat acute bacterial bronchitis; they’ll just help soothe the symptoms. Further, the antibiotic will help your body fight off the bacteria causing the infection, but won’t help break up mucus or soothe night coughing.
Side Effects
Besides not being effective against the usual viral causes of bronchitis, the risk of side effects is another reason that antibiotics are not commonly used to treat bronchitis. The Cochrane report mentioned above found that patients given antibiotics were more likely to have side effects from them.
Common side effects of antibiotics used to treat bronchitis include:
11 SourcesVerywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Chest cold (acute bronchitis) basics.Kincaid S, Long NA.Acute bronchitis.Am Fam Physician.Park JY, Park S, Lee SH, Lee MG, Park YB, et al.Microorganisms causing community-acquired acute bronchitis: the role of bacterial infection.PLOS ONE2016;11(10):e0165553. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0165553Barnett ML, Linder JA.Antibiotic prescribing for adults with acute bronchitis in the United States.JAMA. 2014;311(19):2020-2022. doi:10.1001/jama.2013.286141Food and Drug Administration (FDA).FDA Drug Safety Communication: FDA advises restricting fluoroquinolone antibiotic use for certain uncomplicated infections; warns about disabling side effects that can occur together.Smith SM, Fahey T, Smucny J, Becker LA.Antibiotics for acute bronchitis.Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2017;6(6):CD000245. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD000245.pub4Michigan Medicine, University of Michigan.Bronchitis: should I take antibiotics?Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Signs of whooping cough.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.About whooping cough.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Treatment of pertussis.Food and Drug Administration.Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs): drug safety communication - avoid use of NSAIDs in pregnancy at 20 weeks or later.
11 Sources
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Chest cold (acute bronchitis) basics.Kincaid S, Long NA.Acute bronchitis.Am Fam Physician.Park JY, Park S, Lee SH, Lee MG, Park YB, et al.Microorganisms causing community-acquired acute bronchitis: the role of bacterial infection.PLOS ONE2016;11(10):e0165553. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0165553Barnett ML, Linder JA.Antibiotic prescribing for adults with acute bronchitis in the United States.JAMA. 2014;311(19):2020-2022. doi:10.1001/jama.2013.286141Food and Drug Administration (FDA).FDA Drug Safety Communication: FDA advises restricting fluoroquinolone antibiotic use for certain uncomplicated infections; warns about disabling side effects that can occur together.Smith SM, Fahey T, Smucny J, Becker LA.Antibiotics for acute bronchitis.Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2017;6(6):CD000245. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD000245.pub4Michigan Medicine, University of Michigan.Bronchitis: should I take antibiotics?Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Signs of whooping cough.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.About whooping cough.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Treatment of pertussis.Food and Drug Administration.Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs): drug safety communication - avoid use of NSAIDs in pregnancy at 20 weeks or later.
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Chest cold (acute bronchitis) basics.Kincaid S, Long NA.Acute bronchitis.Am Fam Physician.Park JY, Park S, Lee SH, Lee MG, Park YB, et al.Microorganisms causing community-acquired acute bronchitis: the role of bacterial infection.PLOS ONE2016;11(10):e0165553. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0165553Barnett ML, Linder JA.Antibiotic prescribing for adults with acute bronchitis in the United States.JAMA. 2014;311(19):2020-2022. doi:10.1001/jama.2013.286141Food and Drug Administration (FDA).FDA Drug Safety Communication: FDA advises restricting fluoroquinolone antibiotic use for certain uncomplicated infections; warns about disabling side effects that can occur together.Smith SM, Fahey T, Smucny J, Becker LA.Antibiotics for acute bronchitis.Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2017;6(6):CD000245. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD000245.pub4Michigan Medicine, University of Michigan.Bronchitis: should I take antibiotics?Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Signs of whooping cough.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.About whooping cough.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Treatment of pertussis.Food and Drug Administration.Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs): drug safety communication - avoid use of NSAIDs in pregnancy at 20 weeks or later.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Chest cold (acute bronchitis) basics.
Kincaid S, Long NA.Acute bronchitis.Am Fam Physician.
Park JY, Park S, Lee SH, Lee MG, Park YB, et al.Microorganisms causing community-acquired acute bronchitis: the role of bacterial infection.PLOS ONE2016;11(10):e0165553. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0165553
Barnett ML, Linder JA.Antibiotic prescribing for adults with acute bronchitis in the United States.JAMA. 2014;311(19):2020-2022. doi:10.1001/jama.2013.286141
Food and Drug Administration (FDA).FDA Drug Safety Communication: FDA advises restricting fluoroquinolone antibiotic use for certain uncomplicated infections; warns about disabling side effects that can occur together.
Smith SM, Fahey T, Smucny J, Becker LA.Antibiotics for acute bronchitis.Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2017;6(6):CD000245. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD000245.pub4
Michigan Medicine, University of Michigan.Bronchitis: should I take antibiotics?
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Signs of whooping cough.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.About whooping cough.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Treatment of pertussis.
Food and Drug Administration.Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs): drug safety communication - avoid use of NSAIDs in pregnancy at 20 weeks or later.
Meet Our Medical Expert Board
Share Feedback
Was this page helpful?Thanks for your feedback!What is your feedback?OtherHelpfulReport an ErrorSubmit
Was this page helpful?
Thanks for your feedback!
What is your feedback?OtherHelpfulReport an ErrorSubmit
What is your feedback?
