Regarding avoiding drugs if possible, our child has had mild cases of conjunctivitis twice in 18 months. The first time they gave him antibiotic eye drops, but the second time I was told 1) we should just throughly wash his eyes with water; 2) if after a couple of days it didn't get better we could go to the pharmacy (we have one right across the street, and several others within 15min walking or bussing distance) and get the antibiotic eye drop without a prescription. As we had reacted early, just washing his eyes with water worked.

I personally have an aversion to self-medication and like a doctor whose first reaction is not to prescribe antibiotics.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman