3 ms·

But in the US at least antibiotics require a prescription from doctors. So you need the doctors to play along, too, and in my own experience I’ve never received

But in the US at least antibiotics require a prescription from doctors. So you need the doctors to play along, too, and in my own experience I’ve never received antibiotics unnecessarily

pdpi 4y ago
You can easily end up with leftovers from a prescription if stop taking them midway through the course once you're feeling better. Those left overs can then be used to self-medicate. I could speculate on how else it happens, but the important part is that it does happen, and e.g. the Mayo clinic says: > According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one-third of antibiotic use in people is not needed nor appropriate. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-health/in-depth/antibiotics/art-20045720 https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-health...
- richardhod 4y ago
  .. and this is one of the biggest sources of antibiotic resistance: people not finishing the course of antibiotics becasue they 'feel better now', rather than eliminating the pathogen so it can't gain resistance. Generally, there should never be leftover antibiotics.
  - pdpi 4y ago
    As I understand it, there's been some recent studies that suggest it might be better to stop early (which is interesting, but that hasn't become standard practice, so I'll just keep doing what the actual professionals tell me to)
arcticfox 4y ago
This is true in the US. In Brazil, my experience is that people expect a doctor to give medicine no matter what, even if it’s not warranted. Major cultural difference to the point where Brazilians feel like American doctors aren’t even treating them.