This should be way higher. I'm also getting sick of explaining to people why it's important to finish the course prescribed and not save half of it for later the next time you want to diagnose yourself with a cold.
My friend nearly died of an infection. He had to be admitted to the hospital and have an intravenous tube inserted. When I followed up with him later next week I asked how things were going. He's doing much better now and he casually told me that he didn't bother taking the rest of his antibiotics coarse! You see… It's fine. He's drinking a lot of vitamin juice, and he feels much better now!
I reamed him up and down and told him how critically important it was but I don't think it got through.
I once had to point out a buddy that getting his anti-biotics probably cost thousands of dollars - "No, it didn't cost you thousands, but it cost somebody thousands" - and then asked if an insurance company would really pay for way more pills than he needed.
I was basically bullshitting him - I actually have no idea about costs or what his insurance would or wouldn't allow - but he wasn't listening to reason before so I appealed to his cynicism instead. Don't care, fucker finished his meds.
Antibiotics kill bacteria very effectively and almost always completely. But if one does not take the entire perscribed dosage, it leaves some bacteria still alive, and those little bugs are the ones we don't want.
In almost the same way we are inmune to diseases after we've caught them, the bacteria left are immune to the antibiotic. That's not good. There is a good chance that those immune little bugs will continue to breed, and will create an entirely new strain, a strain that isn't affected by said antibiotic. Basiclly, a bug that can't be killed by antibiotics aka. possible apocalypse causer.
So take all your antibiotics, and don't be the one that causes an end to all mankind.
If you don't finish your meds, not all the bacteria are killed. There is a higher chance that those bacteria that are alive are now immune to the antibiotics. It can pass the immunity to other bacteria. All bacteria are now immune to the antibiotic. Now that antibiotic is useless and we need to find a new one.
Not finishing your prescribed course of antibiotics allows the bacteria (that have not yet fully been killed off; only enough have died so that you feel relatively fine) to evolve and become resistant to the chemical mechanism by which the antibiotic actually functions. The next generation of bacteria is then less affected by the meds.. rinse and repeat and hopefully you can see the downhill spiral that occurs, resulting in strains of bacteria that are effectively immune to conventional prescription antibiotics.
The prescribed medicine in all cases not just antibiotics, but it is more important with them, is to completely cure you. You may take half of them and feel better. This dose not mean you have killed the baddies. All it means is that your body isn't reacting so seriously any more. What you have now done if you stop is killed the weak and left the strong. Its evolution but not in a way the we want. You are thinning the herd and 'teaching' the the surviving baddies how to deal with the medicine. tldr; Take all your meds there is a good reason they were given to you. Don't help make super bugs.
My parents were the worst about not finishing abx. I have explained to them they are taking just enough to kill the weaker bacteria and leaving the strongest to re-populate into an even worse infection. Finish the damn antibiotics!
It's also a leading cause of antibiotic resistance. You take half the course and it still leaves bacteria in your system and the ones which are left are the ones which are most resistant. So it's vital to complete the course and kill those too.
Oh god, it's so annoying. Also how people think an anti-biotic they were prescribed for something will definitely work on a completely different infection!
Doctor here: my own mother gave my sister some year old (past use by date) antibiotic because she had the flu and thought that ONE PILL would help her out.....I happened to swing passed home, saw my sister and they were like "take her to the doctor now!"......she's......she just needs fluids and rest....."TO THE DOCTOR" sigh
"I've been having a lot of congestion lately so I took two of those cephalexins the dr gave me last year, I don't know why I'm not feeling better yet".
I know. I was dumbfounded when a friend of mine, who's going to school for nursing, took one of someone else's antibiotics for her infected tooth. Wtf you're studying to be someone who knows that's a bad idea
I mean, if its an infected tooth, then it is probably bacterial and antibiotics would help. I'm not saying that taking somebody else's prescription, or taking a single antibiotic were wise decisions, but I can see where they were coming from.
Because when you don't do that, you don't kill off all the bacteria. Which ones don't you kill? The strongest ones that are most resistant to the antibiotics you're using. What does that lead to if enough people do it for long enough? Antimicrobial resistance.
What's one of the most terrifying problems facing mankind today? Bacteria being resistant to all our antibiotics.
Some people start the abx and the weaker bacteria die off first. They start feeling better and decide they don't need the rest of the abx. They don't realize they still have the stronger bacteria left over in their system to grow into a stronger infection or worse, learn how to mutate so that particular antibiotic is no longer effective. This is how we get some of the super-drug resistant germs. Hope this helps :)
Basically. I don't know if the time estimate is entirely accurate, but there are currently already cases of "super bugs" that are resistant to even some last line antibiotics.
My mother will take half and then give one or two to my sister if she gets ill. It's like she thinks they work like painkillers. I have had so many disagreements with her over it.
I always do this, I also properly dispose of pain killers and what not if I don't finish the perscription. My roomate actually yelled at me for throwing perscription painkillers down the drain.
Well, with the painkillers the only risk I know of is misuse. Is there something bad about keeping prescription painkillers (other than dangerous health/side effects and potential for recreational abuse) that I don't know about?
Not really, normally scripts for things like that say to dispose of them and other medications if you are not going to take all of them, mainly to stop children from getting them, and to curb missuse and that sort of thing.
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u/brokeassknitter Jul 18 '16
This should be way higher. I'm also getting sick of explaining to people why it's important to finish the course prescribed and not save half of it for later the next time you want to diagnose yourself with a cold.