to be really annoyed about antibiotics?

[WaterfallsOver]

Or rather their misuse. I have parent friends who run to the GP every time little Billy has a cough, demanding antibiotics, so many people see them as a panacea. I'm not medically trained but I know they don't work on viruses and many illnesses need to run their course with no medical intervention.

The news is telling us antibiotics won't work in a few years due to over/misuse. I feel really angry that selfishness and stupidity mean in a few years people may die from infections resistant to antibiotics :( if they were only used for serious illness perhaps we'd have a chance. There was a guy who died from resistant infection on the news :(

I ended up going to see my GP after over 6 weeks of hacking coughing, keeping both dh and me awake at night. He knows that I hate taking antibiotics, but prescribed me a 5 day course of higher dose amoxycillin as my lungs were crackling, so it appeared I had developed a secondary infection. On day 5 I rang up (as it was a Friday) as if anything things had got worse (splitting pressure head ache every time I coughed, which was frequently, difficulty in getting a productive cough) so he prescribed another 5 days worth. A week later I went to see him again (allowed a couple of days in between just to see if the cough would go as it wasn't so painful any more) and he said I still had an infection in both lungs, so gave me a 7 day course of another antibiotic and I now finally seem to be clear.

The issue of resistant bacteria is an old one - my dad is a doctor and one of the reasons I hate taking antibiotics is because of that, combined with the fact that they reduce your resistance to things like thrush as they also kill off all the "good" bacteria. I am almost OCD about taking the antibiotics as prescribed (for both me and for our cats when they are prescribed for them).

The thing that bugs me (no pun intended ) is the number of people I know who will proudly say that they've been prescribed a course of antibiotics and have stopped taking them 'cos the infection has cleared up.

To be honest I think part of the problem is that our work culture expects us to be able to go to the doctor, get a pill, and carry on doing our job whether that involves public facing services or using desks, phones, keyboards and being in close proximity to many coworkers.
This IS NOT the same as a farmer sucking up his cold and still milking the cows or a housewife in the past still going to the well.
When people have viruses they need to rest their bodies to get well quickly and they need to stay away from large numbers of people in close proximity and particularly in artifically heated or air conditioned environments but our work culture just won't accept that.

Antibacterial cleaning agents do not contain antibiotics.

momb - that's why my dad never used antibacterial products in the house - and I've followed his example.

Does the amount of antibiotics given to cattle or other farm animals affect antibiotic resistance? Or are they different abs?

How can we be sure that this is all caused by the mother of little Billy and not by the routine use of antibiotics in FARMING, especially in cattle farming? I note it's much easier to blame the woman you know than the farmer you don't.

Agree with saintlyjimjams about farm animals (including fish) being pumped with ABs. It's a disgrace.

How interesting that on this thread no one has mentioned PREVENTION, if you don't give your DCS dairy they don't tend to get ear\ sinus and other infections. I don't usually have dairy but when I do I immediately get all the symptoms that people take ABs for.

Olgaga I think people do expect to get instantly well. Which is why they take antibiotics for a virus rather than sitting it out. Agree with badguider.

yep juules eg www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17600481

I think iirc it isn't something that is done much here though (so I am a bit about their complications in that abtsract)

Oh yes look - antibitiotcs for cattle feed banned in the EU europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-05-1687_en.htm

The other issue is cutting operations like tonsillectomies. My eldest DD was on antibiotics for at least 2 weeks every single month for 2 years before the NHS reluctantly agreed a tonsillectomy.

That was 2 years ago and she has had a dose of antibiotics since. The cost of those 2 years of antibiotic treatment/ doctors appointments was considerably more than the op. Now I'm not saying in every case an operation should be the first course of action but what my DD went through was ridiculous.

It wouldn't surprise me if she was resistant to many forms of antibiotic.

This is not the fault of parents but is instead the fault of medical professionals who refuse to stand up to the 'parents' who demand antibiotics.

Doctors will have to retrain themselves to say No. Us parents will have to deal with the ensuing risk that a chest infection etc may be overlooked.

ppeat - actually that's interesting because before prescribing the antibiotics for ds1 the hospital doctors did take quite a bit of time to ensure it wasn't a bad allergic reaction (he has a cellulitis type thing)

DS3 didn't have cow's milk at the time of his ear infections (ds1 did) - but he did eventually outgrow them - assume his tubes were a shape that blocked easily.

But anyway can't say I noticed much difference in severity of infection or time taken to recover between ds1 (repeated antibiotics) and ds2 (no antibiotics).

*ds3 (not ds2)

I remember reading an article in the Sunday times magazine when I was about 8 or 9 about this and it really scared me. There were talks of superbugs back in the 80s and 90s as far as I am aware.

I don't understand why GPs are still prescribing antibiotics like they're sweets. I had to take three sets of antibiotics last year when I was ill to treat my chest infection. The last set was the strongest one the doctor could prescribe me. Only then was my chest cleared.

But mindosa it has been known for medics to be threatened and actually beaten up by patients\parents who were demanding ABs.

Although this www.soilassociation.org/antibiotics is a bit depressing

I think badguider makes a great point.

It's all well and good to tell people not to ask for ABs and doctors not to prescribe them, but as long as we live with a work culture where so many people cannot take time off when they're ill, those pressures will still be there.

It is depressing saintly even more depressing is the bad P.R. that organic food gets when it's producers are positively fighting the universal use of ABs.

It isn't just antibiotic resistance that alarms me. There are also several extreme-multi-drug resistant strains of TB, some of which are literally untreatable, and it is only a matter of time before these begin to spread in Europe. There is also rising resistance to AIDS drugs and to the main malaria drug - artemisinin - particularly in South East Asia, due to misuse and weaker counterfeit versions. All of the above represent a ticking global health time-bomb. I'm not surprised this is news- I'm only surprised it isn't discussed more often.
Suggestions that researchers "aren't doing enough" strike me as pretty audacious, BTW. A host of scientists, many of whom are disgracefully underpaid, are obviously working very hard to address all of the above.

My son's paediatrician only prescribes antibiotics if she does a nasal swab and deems them necessary (not a public health system ) BUT those swab tests obviously cost money, and antibiotics cost pennies, so in a "free at point of use" system, it's not surprising that they just give you the antibiotics.

The use in farming really does need to be tackled.

Does anyone know if there are any producers/suppliers (other than Soil Association certified ones) which guarantee no routine non-therapeutic AB use in their source animals?

It's not about individual scientists really is it, as always it's about (very simply) money.

Scientists developed antibiotics. Scientists explained what would happen if they were misused. They were misused.

Agree ppeat

I read something quite scary about TB this morning -www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/03/07/173750840/a-mans-journey-from-nepal-to-texas-triggers-global-tb-scramble

Really recommend that Andrew Read TEDMED talk above btw

Darn www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/03/07/173750840/a-mans-journey-from-nepal-to-texas-triggers-global-tb-scramble

Indeed it's an old problem.
More so because we eat meat from animals treated systematically with antibiotics so that the animals don't get ill and produce more meat.

Misuse is not only about not completing the course, or taking when not necessary.
I also once had an argument with a pharmacist about the times when to take antibiotics.
It should be at regular times, but she thought that over 12 hours apart would be fine, even though it should be every 6 hours, for example.
The extended time with no antibiotic in the system will allow slightly resistant forms to proliferate and for increased resistance to emerge within the course of the disease. :(

Good point richman

The thing I find alarming about it, is I can count on one hand the number of antibiotics I have had courses for in my life. However that counts for nothing because of over use generally. The bugs have mutated and there's nothing I can do about it or not.