Why it is advised always to complete the full course of antibiotics??
Why it is advised always to complete the full course of antibiotics??
The reason that doctors ask patients to make sure they finish the entire course of antibiotics is to prevent the development of resistant bacterial strains. The length of therapy has been determined through studies that have looked at what level of antibiotic is needed in the blood and body tissues over a particular length of time to completely kill off the pathogenic population.
Quitting a day or two early may not cause harm, but it might. It's impossible to say for sure, which is why we say to take all the pills. Only then can we be reasonably sure that all the bacteria are gone. This is as much for your benefit as it is for those around you.
Let's say you have strep throat and get amoxicillin from your doctor. If you quit the antibiotics early, you may have killed off 99% of the bacteria. The problem is that the 1% that survived are the toughest and meanest of the bunch. If you’re otherwise healthy, your immune system might be able to clean up the stragglers. If for any reason it can’t finish the job, though, that 1% begins to replicate unopposed by antibiotics. In that case, you now end up with an infection which is resistant to the amoxicillin we gave you the first time. Anyone you're in contact with will be exposed to this newly resistant strain. Now, both you and anyone who caught strep from you have to be treated with a stronger antibiotic that has more side effects than the amoxicillin did. There is also now a resistant strain of bacteria in the population. We’ve already seen the results of this problem in common bacterial infections. There are now known strains of strep and staph that are typically resistant to the penicillin that used to kill them. This resistance is why you almost never get plain penicillin for an infection anymore. Too many bugs have developed resistance.
If this cycle goes on long enough we end up with bacterial strains like MRSA and VRE, which are hearty little buggers that need big gun antibiotics to treat. It becomes a serious public health problem, and patients are the ones who pay the price.
The reason that doctors ask patients to make sure they finish the entire course of antibiotics is to prevent the development of resistant bacterial strains. The length of therapy has been determined through studies that have looked at what level of antibiotic is needed in the blood and body tissues over a particular length of time to completely kill off the pathogenic population.
Quitting a day or two early may not cause harm, but it might. It's impossible to say for sure, which is why we say to take all the pills. Only then can we be reasonably sure that all the bacteria are gone. This is as much for your benefit as it is for those around you.
Let's say you have strep throat and get amoxicillin from your doctor. If you quit the antibiotics early, you may have killed off 99% of the bacteria. The problem is that the 1% that survived are the toughest and meanest of the bunch. If you’re otherwise healthy, your immune system might be able to clean up the stragglers. If for any reason it can’t finish the job, though, that 1% begins to replicate unopposed by antibiotics. In that case, you now end up with an infection which is resistant to the amoxicillin we gave you the first time. Anyone you're in contact with will be exposed to this newly resistant strain. Now, both you and anyone who caught strep from you have to be treated with a stronger antibiotic that has more side effects than the amoxicillin did. There is also now a resistant strain of bacteria in the population. We’ve already seen the results of this problem in common bacterial infections. There are now known strains of strep and staph that are typically resistant to the penicillin that used to kill them. This resistance is why you almost never get plain penicillin for an infection anymore. Too many bugs have developed resistance.
If this cycle goes on long enough we end up with bacterial strains like MRSA and VRE, which are hearty little buggers that need big gun antibiotics to treat. It becomes a serious public health problem, and patients are the ones who pay the price.
