Health & Wellness Antibiotics

There is confusion about over-use of antibiotics.

The expert opinion is that doctors prescribe them too often and so there are too many opportunities for them to allow resistant organisms to form (primarily bacteria and fungi (although fungal treatments are usually termed anti-fungals)). The fact that some people do not finish the course of antibiotics encourages resistant strains to emerge as the shorter treatment course just kills off the weaker organisms. This is a sort of under-use by the patient but the actual problem is over -use. The development of resistance to antibiotics is simply a form of natural selection from survival of the fittest.

The use of antibiotics as growth supplements in cattle and other livestock and the improper dumping of antibiotics by pharmaceutical companies makes the situation even worse.

New antibiotics are not being discovered fast enough to replace the ones which now have limited use due to resistance to them. There is discussions about powerful computers/AI being able to create new ones synthetically, as most originated from natural sources ( as with penicillin from a fungus). Also, viruses are being thought about as they can kill bacteria (these type of viruses are called bacteriophages) as effectively as they can kill humans!

 

I think there might have been an over rotation in the US, where you could never get antibiotics without a prescription. I had some kind of intestinal issue and the doctor wanted to culture the diarrhea and refer me a to a GI doctor before prescribing antibiotics. $10 versus $500, not to mention doctor costs, I'll take my risk with bacterial resistance. Turns out I had some cipro from a previous trip to the Philippines that take care of things. : )

 

I agree - I would not pay such high fees when there are still a few broad-spectrum antibiotics available, unless the condition was near to life-threatening. Sometimes doctors just want to make cash. I think it is difficult to get antibiotics almost anywhere now without a prescription - that is a good thing to help prevent over-use and the development of resistance. A bit like painkillers - some people crave the psychological effect of taking them but then get rebound headaches from over-using on a personal level.

 

The biggest problem with antibiotics is the unbridled use of them in domesticated animals (all of them), in many cases even given to animals as a "prevention measure".
This should have been outlawed internationally many many moons ago, as soon as resistant strains of bacteria emerged.
We need to preserve antibiotics for the species that matters most to us (and yes, people need to finish their courses).
This will cause some economic losses but we'll need to live with that if we want to keep some antibiotics that still work for ourselves.
There are already several countries (China, USA and Spain among them) where large percentages of common bacteria strains are resistant against antibiotics, up to 60% in E-coli in China.
And as an aside, no new classes of antibiotics have been developed/discovered in the last 35 years or so, so we better be very careful with the ones we have that still work.

 

Some say you're not sick until you go to the doctor. Perhaps the entire healthcare industry could benefit, drug resistance and all, by people just fighting off illness on their own. Some people go to the doctor if they sneeze or if little Billy has a tummy ache. Most people in America have to take "Life Sciences" during their middle school years. It seems like a wonderful time to teach people a lesson on when to go to the doctor.

 

I can see your point but it is simply not true for many people - these are the ones who really are ill and no amount of 'home treatment' (been through this saga already in another thread!) will be suitable.

I don't think it is rational to expect everyone to be taught how to decide for sure when to visit the doctor - only when NOT to visit in some cases. If everyone could self-diagnose successfully, we would have a very intelligent and medically qualified World.

I read of too many cases where a terminal patient 'left it too long' to ever accept the idea of home treatment in many cases.

 

Sniffles and tummy ache vs. terminal illness? I agree with eskirvin on this case. Injuries & STDs aside , and you're not a child, you know when you have something new. Then see a doctor. I can't recall the last time I went to a doctor other than to get stitches.

 

johns hopkins did a study released in i believe 2015 with the conclusion that medical system errors was the third leading cause of death in the US, at about 250,000 lives a year. subsequent evaluations peg it at that or more, up to 440,000 a year. after spending fifty years of my life in US healthcare both as a caregiver and as an administrator, this is not a statistic i would challenge.

deciding when to go to the doctor is a big decision, esp if you have children. i always suggest to people that the first opinion about what is wrong should be their own. the second opinion should come from the first doctor they see. if any recommended course involves surgery or other risky tx, then get a second(actually third) opinion.

you are spot on!!