4 ms·

We didn't use antibiotics, we abused them! For example, often doctors, instead of testing, and then prescribing a targeted antibiotic, give you on, two, three u

We didn't use antibiotics, we abused them! For example, often doctors, instead of testing, and then prescribing a targeted antibiotic, give you on, two, three until you have an improvement without getting culture and prescribing the right antibiotic! Also, often, antibiotics are prescribed preventively for viral infection (like pneumonia), and not given ONLY when you have a proven bacterial infection, so, being lazy and cutting costs pretty much erase a whole arsenal of drugs!

mschuster91 5y ago
Yeah, and add to that the abuse of reserve (!) antibiotics in farming to improve yield.
folli 5y ago
To be fair, lab testing can take a day or more, if you need to include an antibiotics screen, even more. Sometimes an infection can get very severe in this time span, so sometimes antibiotics are given prophylactically without waiting for the results to come back. I hope the massive advances of sequencing will reach the clinics soon, it should be possible to get the genome of the infectious bacteria/virus in a couple of hours with today's tech. You can even infer the antibiotic resistance from this info, so you'd know how to treat the infection in a very targeted fashion.
- andai 5y ago
  >I hope the massive advances of sequencing will reach the clinics soon What are the obstacles to this? I have been seeing articles lately about sequencing your own DNA at home in a few hours for about a thousand bucks. I guess the medical grade equipment has to be a lot more robust, so a lot more expensive? (And there might be an insufficient supply of biology interns to operate the equipment.)
Traubenfuchs 5y ago
We still abuse them HEAVILY. My boyfriend got a whole stock of different antibiotics for his acne (that isn't even that bad). Women mention an itch in their private parts to doctors and, you guessed it, immediately get prescribed, often random, antibiotics. I had a (not yet, but moving towards "life threatening") abscess. In the phase where we were still seeing if it could heal out by draining without antibiotics, no culture was done. When it quickly got worse, I got prescribed a set of three distinct antibiotics at once. That lead to me developing persistent gram negative folliculitis on the beard that another doctor wanted to treat with Ciprofloxacin, which is known to cause permanent tendon, cartilage, eye damage or death in a significant amount of patients. At my urging I got prescribed a different one. Which didn't help. I got rid of my folliculitis myself with an extreme regime of topical salicylic acid, tee trea oil and BPO. Doctors pretty much roll the dice on which antibiotics they prescribe.
webmobdev 5y ago
This is very much true in India too, where antibiotics are sometimes administered even for common cold, without any tests, on the doctors judgement. Healthcare policies has also changed the attitude of the people as they tend to consider any medical tests suspiciously as an unnecessary money making venture by the doctor and / or hospital. Moreover, most people also don't strictly follow the instructions to take the antibiotic doses for the requisite period and often stop in the middle, once they feel better.

mschuster91 5y ago

Yeah, and add to that the abuse of reserve (!) antibiotics in farming to improve yield.

folli 5y ago

To be fair, lab testing can take a day or more, if you need to include an antibiotics screen, even more. Sometimes an infection can get very severe in this time span, so sometimes antibiotics are given prophylactically without waiting for the results to come back. I hope the massive advances of sequencing will reach the clinics soon, it should be possible to get the genome of the infectious bacteria/virus in a couple of hours with today's tech. You can even infer the antibiotic resistance from this info, so you'd know how to treat the infection in a very targeted fashion.

andai 5y ago
>I hope the massive advances of sequencing will reach the clinics soon What are the obstacles to this? I have been seeing articles lately about sequencing your own DNA at home in a few hours for about a thousand bucks. I guess the medical grade equipment has to be a lot more robust, so a lot more expensive? (And there might be an insufficient supply of biology interns to operate the equipment.)

Traubenfuchs 5y ago

We still abuse them HEAVILY. My boyfriend got a whole stock of different antibiotics for his acne (that isn't even that bad). Women mention an itch in their private parts to doctors and, you guessed it, immediately get prescribed, often random, antibiotics. I had a (not yet, but moving towards "life threatening") abscess. In the phase where we were still seeing if it could heal out by draining without antibiotics, no culture was done. When it quickly got worse, I got prescribed a set of three distinct antibiotics at once. That lead to me developing persistent gram negative folliculitis on the beard that another doctor wanted to treat with Ciprofloxacin, which is known to cause permanent tendon, cartilage, eye damage or death in a significant amount of patients. At my urging I got prescribed a different one. Which didn't help. I got rid of my folliculitis myself with an extreme regime of topical salicylic acid, tee trea oil and BPO. Doctors pretty much roll the dice on which antibiotics they prescribe.

webmobdev 5y ago

This is very much true in India too, where antibiotics are sometimes administered even for common cold, without any tests, on the doctors judgement. Healthcare policies has also changed the attitude of the people as they tend to consider any medical tests suspiciously as an unnecessary money making venture by the doctor and / or hospital. Moreover, most people also don't strictly follow the instructions to take the antibiotic doses for the requisite period and often stop in the middle, once they feel better.