If you have ever taken an antibiotic, you likely know the drill: Finish the entire course of treatment, even if you are feeling better, or else you risk a relapse. Worse, by not finishing, you might contribute to the dangerous rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
“If we don’t complete the course of therapy, there is concern that the bacteria that are left over may be more likely to develop resistance to the antibiotic,” Hicks says. “That turns out to be much less of a problem than was originally believed.”
AS A pharmacist, Allan Wilson should know better if he is suggesting that antibiotic courses are too long. A number of factors will determine how long it takes even an effective antibiotic to eliminate an infection.
The kind of antibiotics prescribed by your doctor, and the length of the course, are based on the best evidence for what will kill all of the bacteria. By cutting treatment short, you increase the chances of the existing bacteria mutating and becoming resistant, therefore making it harder to treat the next time around.
If you are taking an antibiotic and can perceive no impact on the infection within 48 hours, you should return to your doctor and request a culture or further investigation. Alan Scott, Lewes, E. Sussex. WHAT about the danger arising from taking more than one may need?
If you have ever taken an antibiotic, you likely know the drill: Finish the entire course of treatment, even if you are feeling better, or else you risk a relapse. Worse, by not finishing, you might contribute to the dangerous rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
If you forget to take a dose of your antibiotics, take that dose as soon as you remember and then continue to take your course of antibiotics as normal. But if it's almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Do not take a double dose to make up for a missed one.
The importance of finishing your course of antibiotics If you stop taking your antibiotics early, the bacteria causing your infection may not have been completely cleared, and your infection could return. It's also possible that these remaining bacteria could develop resistance to the antibiotic.
If you have been fever-free for 24 to 48 hours and are feeling significantly better, “it's reasonable to call your doctor and ask if you can stop your antibiotic,” she says. And be reassured that “stopping short of a full course of antibiotics won't worsen the problem of antibiotic resistance,” Peto says.
THE danger to the individual is that the infection will recur, and will be more difficult to treat when it does. The danger to the rest of us is that the general population of the infecting bacterium will become more resistant to the antibiotic concerned. If you fail to complete a course of antibiotics, some of the bacteria causing ...
These include the fact that there are areas of the body where antibiotics do not achieve good penetration (e.g. the lungs and sinuses). The quantity of infective material that may have built up in the body, and from which re-infection may occur, must also be taken into account.
If the drug manufacturers know the antibiotic is effective in 48 hours then a recommended five-day treatment would keep everybody happy, including their shareholders. Allan Wilson, Pharmacist, Comrie, Perthshire. AS A pharmacist, Allan Wilson should know better if he is suggesting that antibiotic courses are too long.
This debate is meaningless in light of the fact that decision to go to a doctor was that of the patient and he/she decided to go because of the confidence in the doctor's ability. Once prescribed by the doctor, I strongly believe that one must complete the course as prescribed.
As the surviving bacteria reproduce, the resulting infection would not be treatable with the same antibiotic. If the infection is passed on to someone else, their infection will also be resistant to the antibiotic. Jim Lodge, London SE4.
Antibiotics will not cure viral infections. So, prescribing antibiotics without properly ascertaining the cause of infection is indeed an equally real danger.
Mary Ingham, Ramsgate, Kent. I think the danger of creating antibiotic-resistant bacteria is very real. Bacterial infections, before antibiotics, quite often proved to be fatal and by discontinuing a course of prescribed antibiotics, we run the risk of going back there.
By cutting treatment short, you increase the chances of the existing bacteria mutating and becoming resistant, therefore making it harder to treat the next time around.
According to the World Health Organisation, stopping treatment early involves the risk of not getting all of the bacteria that made you unwell killed off. As we don’t know who can safely stop treatment early, making your own judgement could result in you falling ill again.
Taking the full course, even if you feel better partway through, will result in you being more likely to get rid of all the bacteria, and reduce the risk of resistance.
resistance: Antibiotics are prescribed to give enough but not too much. If you stop when you feel better you may only kill 95% of the bacteria, unfortunately these may have been the stronger "bugs" and be the source of new antibiotic resistance then when the infection becomes symptomatic again the same antibiotic may not work.
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It is thought that stopping your antibiotic before the course is finished would prevent complete killing of your infection , leaving some survivors; surviving bacteria would then be harder to treat with antibiotics. It has been suggested that the idea of taking the full course originated from Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin back in 1943. In his Nobel Prize speech, he describes a scenario where someone with strep throat takes penicillin to treat the infection, but not enough to kill most of it, and the remaining bacteria are resistant due to being exposed to penicillin. He concludes, “if you use penicillin, use enough,” since this was before dosing standards existed–he was trying to say that underdosing is still dangerous. It is understood that the minimum concentration of antibiotic capable of significantly inhibiting growth of bacteria depends on the action of the drug and other factors about the patient it is administered to and, because of this, there are adjusted dosing suggestions. For instance, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bug responsible for Tuberculosis, is very slow growing. Thus taking a single antibiotic, like rifampicin, for only a short time would not be sufficient to clear the infection. On the other hand, something like an acute, non-recurring urinary tract infection does not require prolonged antibiotic use. While underdosing/not taking an adequate concentration of antibiotic is dangerous for human health and may cause antibiotic resistance, what about taking “enough” for too long?
Bacteria are antibiotic resistant when they can grow in the presence of an antibiotic that was meant to kill them. Some bacteria already have the genes to resist antibiotics. Others acquire this resistance through random mutations that are then maintained in the population. Mutations constantly arise in DNA; many people think ...
They considered factors like the dynamics of susceptible and resistant bacteria, natural growth rates, horizontal gene transfer, death of microorganisms, and degradation of drugs when creating their model. They suggest that initial high doses followed by lower doses might optimally eradicate an infection. Since their study is not based on empirical evidence, it can only make suggestions about the duration of antibiotic prescription.
The general idea is that prolonged exposure to antibiotics will promote resistance instead of prevent it. If a population of bacteria are continually exposed to antibiotics, eventually only the bacteria with a rare, specialized ability to resist the antibiotics will remain and they’ll be able to grow as long as they want despite the presence of antibiotics. Some experts think this explanation is more likely and that we should be wary about extended courses of antibiotics. Tim Peto, a professor of infectious diseases, says, “I think we should always say that patients should follow their physician’s advice. But I think what we’re saying is we can empower physicians to advise shorter courses of treatment depending on what’s wrong with you. And also, if you respond well to your treatment and get better, they might well say you can cut short your course of antibiotics.” Dr. Brad Spellberg, Chief Medical Officer for LA County, boldly stated, “It is absolutely false that continuing to take antibiotics after you feel completely better will reduce the emergence of antibiotic resistance.” He follows up to explain that we don’t know the course of treatment which is absolutely necessary to treat most infections but hypothesizes that the Constantine decree of 7 days in a week is why antibiotics are often prescribed for 7 or 14 days. These opinions are not outliers. If you do a Google search on this topic, all of the top hits have something to do with stopping your course of antibiotics early; this is probably because antibiotic resistance is growing and people are beginning to question age-old practices.
About one-third of antibiotics prescribed in doctors’ offices are unnecessary, according to a recent report from the CDC.
If you wind up with leftover antibiotics, don’t hang on to them . Discard unused antibiotics by returning them to the pharmacy or a community take-back program. Or mix the medication with an unpalatable substance such as coffee grounds or kitty litter, seal it in a bag, and throw it out with the household trash.
Every year, over two million people in the U.S. get infections that are resistant to some types of antibiotics. On the ' Consumer 101 ' TV show, Consumer Reports’ expert Lauren Friedman explains what you need to know about these superbug infections.
If you have been fever-free for 24 to 48 hours and are feeling significantly better, “it’s reasonable to call your doctor and ask if you can stop your antibiotic,” she says.
The idea that people need to take all their antibiotics, even after they’re feeling better, is based in part on outdated notions about what causes antibiotic resistance, says Lauri Hicks, D.O., a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and head of the agency’s Get Smart: Know When Antibiotics Work program.
Plus, the longer you take antibiotics, the more likely you are to wipe out the “good” bacteria in your intestines, Hicks says. That leaves you vulnerable to infection from the bacterium clostridium difficile, or C. diff, which can cause dangerous inflammation, abdominal cramping, and severe diarrhea, and can even be deadly.
Peto notes that “when shorter courses have been compared to longer ones, the shorter therapy has nearly always proved just as effective.”
If you will not taken your full course of antibiotic then it will lead to ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANT BACTERIA.
If you take antibiotics of the WRONG family, you will be suppressing the beneficial bacteria of the body that would normally be killing the pathogenic ones NOW affecting you .
But this treatment must be completed in FULL DOSE. Usually full dose would be for 9–10 days 3times if 500 mg - AS ADVISED BY DOCTORS as they know the severity of infection.
Robbins & Cotran Pathologic Basis of Diseases, Book I, Chapter 3: Inflammation and Repair.
Repair of damaged tissues occurs by two types of reactions: regeneration by proliferation of residual (uninjured) cells and maturation of tissue stem cells, and the deposition of connective tissue to form a scar.
Severe cases go onto Septicemia, blood poisoning, which requires hospitalization and IV antibiotics.
Yes this is also fact that antibiotic kills the friendly bacteria of our body and effects our liver , kidney , intestine , so have antibiotic with lemon juice
They argue that it is not backed by evidence and should be replaced. Antibiotics are important for fighting off infections, but there is a growing global concern about the number of cases in which bacteria have become resistant to these medicines. So that more germs don't build up a resistance to antibiotics, it's important ...
The current recommendation by the World Health Organization (WHO) is to "always complete the full prescription, even if you feel better, because stopping treatment early promotes the growth of drug-resistant bacteria.”. But several experts in infectious diseases are urging policymakers, educators, and doctors to reconsider ...
Alexander Fleming's 1945 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, for example, included his view that if not enough penicillin is given for a streptococcal throat infection, a resistant form of the infection could be passed on to another person. It turned out that the streptococcal bacteria responsible for throat infections have yet to develop a resistance to penicillin.
It is true that for certain infections -- such as tuberculosis, gonorrhea, and malaria -- when the germs causing the infection replicate, antibiotic-resistant mutations can happen if not enough antibiotic is given during treatment or only one medicine is used . This is known as targeted selection. But most bacteria do not develop resistance through targeted selection.
They say that there is no evidence that stopping antibiotics early encourages antibiotic resistance -- and ...
They say that there is no evidence that stopping antibiotics early encourages antibiotic resistance -- and that taking them for longer than needed makes resistance more likely.
They say that in one clinical trial, stopping antibiotics for treat ing pneumonia when the patient's fever went down cut the average length of antibiotic treatment in half and did not affect recovery.