3 ms·

I don't understand why this was downvoted. This is an excellent question.

by whimsy 15y ago

munin 15y ago
good question, terrible person
- gommm 15y ago
  Well I wouldn't say terrible person. The problem is that this is not well explained and so most people just do not understand the problems associated with not completing the antibiotic treatment prescribed by the doctor... It's good that he asked and now he will know why it's important and will do it.. It's a failure of education if intelligent and educated people are not aware of the consequences.
  - harshreality 15y ago
    It doesn't have to be well explained. Instructions for antibiotic prescriptions from a licensed doctor/pharmacy tells you to take the full course of antibiotics and not quit part way through. I wonder what other prescription instructions he disregards... drug interaction warnings? You don't get to disregard those just because you're not familiar with the biochemistry involved. Or, what about, "Do not look into 1W laser with remaining good eye?" If you don't know what a laser is or why it might be bad to look into it, you either research the issue, or you follow those instructions blindly (pun intended). You don't blow them off and then ask HN why looking into class 4 lasers is bad after both your eyes are damaged. It's good that they finally asked, though. It should have been asked a long time ago, and not on HN, I think that's the point of the downvotes.
    - anon123890 15y ago
      > It doesn't have to be well explained. Instructions for antibiotic prescriptions from a licensed doctor/pharmacy tells you to take the full course of antibiotics and not quit part way through. Why shouldn't it be well explained? It's not like it's rare for doctors to prescribe things people don't really need, especially in this day and age, in the USA.
    - Confusion 15y ago
      I don't doubt that you regularly do not follow instructions. Everyone knows many instructions err on the side of caution and not literally following them doesn't add any risks. Almost everyone crosses the street when the light is red, but there is not a car in sight (and the view is clear). Many people will use perishable products after their guaranteed 'fresh until' period. However, this also happens for instructions you don't actually know the reason for. People will mentally substitute a convenient reason. Take the antibiotics for 3 weeks? "Yeah, probably because it sometimes takes 3 weeks for the infection to be gone. It probably doesn't hurt to stop after 2 weeks; I mean, what could it do?". People are not even aware of reasoning in such a way and saying "it doesn't have to be well explained" disregards that well known fact about human psychology. If you want people to do something, explain why. In fact, that even works when your reason doesn't make any sense. "Can I please use the copy machine before you, because I have to make some copies of these documents" will get more compliance than "Can I please use the copy machine before you".
  - asto 15y ago
    In India, not many people have access to a decent education let alone access to the internet where you can freely read up on any medication that you are prescribed. Many of the doctors here are assholes who will prescribe antibiotics for even the common cold saying "most of our patients want antibiotics so we give it to them". I wouldn't call the average person without the access to knowledge and resources that the average HN user has a terrible person for abusing antibiotics in this fashion but in my opinion, swizec should know better.
- anon123890 15y ago
  The negative impact of not finishing antibiotics was news to me, and now I know. I think it's ridiculous to call him a terrible person. Uninformed maybe. Although that's no longer the case.
  - harshreality 15y ago
    You pay a doctor to give you advice. The doctor says take these pills on schedule for X days [1]. You ignore X. Why did you bother going to the doctor in the first place if you weren't going to follow her advice? The only people who should be selectively following medical advice are people who have made an effort to understand the science behind the advice. The more serious the condition, the better your understanding of the treatment ought to be before you disregard advice. If a patient has a working understanding of what bacteria are, and how antibiotics work [2], then the patent understands why taking antibiotics for W (where W<X) days might be bad. The reasoning, roughly, is that fewer resistant bacteria will be killed, making you more likely to infect others with resistant strains between when you stop taking it on day W and when you become non-infectious. That sort of patient can do whatever she wants for all I care. She's likely to make a decision that's at least as informed as the doctor's. That type of patient would never ask why X matters. [1] Determining X on a per-case basis would involve way too much testing, so the medical community reaches a consensus based on studies (which may or may not be any good), and prescribes drug X for time T based on that consensus. Even if you could afford to get fast test results every few hours to monitor your infection status and see how well the antibiotics were working, and even if you could see what percentage of your infectious colony is resistant, you probably wouldn't want to. Spending that much time in a hospital or clinic is way more risky -- MRSA loves hanging out in those places -- than spending an extra day or three taking antibiotics even if fast accurate tests might show that you don't need to. [2] It's not binary. It's all about how different concentrations of antibiotics result in different rates of bacterial survival. In any colony of clinically significant size, there are going to be different rates of resistance.

I don't understand why this was downvoted. This is an excellent question.

by whimsy 15y ago

I don't understand why this was downvoted. This is an excellent question.

munin 15y ago

good question, terrible person

gommm 15y ago
Well I wouldn't say terrible person. The problem is that this is not well explained and so most people just do not understand the problems associated with not completing the antibiotic treatment prescribed by the doctor... It's good that he asked and now he will know why it's important and will do it.. It's a failure of education if intelligent and educated people are not aware of the consequences.
- harshreality 15y ago
  It doesn't have to be well explained. Instructions for antibiotic prescriptions from a licensed doctor/pharmacy tells you to take the full course of antibiotics and not quit part way through. I wonder what other prescription instructions he disregards... drug interaction warnings? You don't get to disregard those just because you're not familiar with the biochemistry involved. Or, what about, "Do not look into 1W laser with remaining good eye?" If you don't know what a laser is or why it might be bad to look into it, you either research the issue, or you follow those instructions blindly (pun intended). You don't blow them off and then ask HN why looking into class 4 lasers is bad after both your eyes are damaged. It's good that they finally asked, though. It should have been asked a long time ago, and not on HN, I think that's the point of the downvotes.
  - anon123890 15y ago
    > It doesn't have to be well explained. Instructions for antibiotic prescriptions from a licensed doctor/pharmacy tells you to take the full course of antibiotics and not quit part way through. Why shouldn't it be well explained? It's not like it's rare for doctors to prescribe things people don't really need, especially in this day and age, in the USA.
  - Confusion 15y ago
    I don't doubt that you regularly do not follow instructions. Everyone knows many instructions err on the side of caution and not literally following them doesn't add any risks. Almost everyone crosses the street when the light is red, but there is not a car in sight (and the view is clear). Many people will use perishable products after their guaranteed 'fresh until' period. However, this also happens for instructions you don't actually know the reason for. People will mentally substitute a convenient reason. Take the antibiotics for 3 weeks? "Yeah, probably because it sometimes takes 3 weeks for the infection to be gone. It probably doesn't hurt to stop after 2 weeks; I mean, what could it do?". People are not even aware of reasoning in such a way and saying "it doesn't have to be well explained" disregards that well known fact about human psychology. If you want people to do something, explain why. In fact, that even works when your reason doesn't make any sense. "Can I please use the copy machine before you, because I have to make some copies of these documents" will get more compliance than "Can I please use the copy machine before you".
- asto 15y ago
  In India, not many people have access to a decent education let alone access to the internet where you can freely read up on any medication that you are prescribed. Many of the doctors here are assholes who will prescribe antibiotics for even the common cold saying "most of our patients want antibiotics so we give it to them". I wouldn't call the average person without the access to knowledge and resources that the average HN user has a terrible person for abusing antibiotics in this fashion but in my opinion, swizec should know better.
anon123890 15y ago
The negative impact of not finishing antibiotics was news to me, and now I know. I think it's ridiculous to call him a terrible person. Uninformed maybe. Although that's no longer the case.
- harshreality 15y ago
  You pay a doctor to give you advice. The doctor says take these pills on schedule for X days [1]. You ignore X. Why did you bother going to the doctor in the first place if you weren't going to follow her advice? The only people who should be selectively following medical advice are people who have made an effort to understand the science behind the advice. The more serious the condition, the better your understanding of the treatment ought to be before you disregard advice. If a patient has a working understanding of what bacteria are, and how antibiotics work [2], then the patent understands why taking antibiotics for W (where W<X) days might be bad. The reasoning, roughly, is that fewer resistant bacteria will be killed, making you more likely to infect others with resistant strains between when you stop taking it on day W and when you become non-infectious. That sort of patient can do whatever she wants for all I care. She's likely to make a decision that's at least as informed as the doctor's. That type of patient would never ask why X matters. [1] Determining X on a per-case basis would involve way too much testing, so the medical community reaches a consensus based on studies (which may or may not be any good), and prescribes drug X for time T based on that consensus. Even if you could afford to get fast test results every few hours to monitor your infection status and see how well the antibiotics were working, and even if you could see what percentage of your infectious colony is resistant, you probably wouldn't want to. Spending that much time in a hospital or clinic is way more risky -- MRSA loves hanging out in those places -- than spending an extra day or three taking antibiotics even if fast accurate tests might show that you don't need to. [2] It's not binary. It's all about how different concentrations of antibiotics result in different rates of bacterial survival. In any colony of clinically significant size, there are going to be different rates of resistance.