To tell you to read this. Especially if you keep antibiotics at home.

[TornadoOfToys]

www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/antibiotic-resistance/en/

Obviously I don't think IABU, but I do think some people need reminding.

And to urge you to think twice about buying meat that says it may have been produced with hormones, antibiotics or other antimicrobial enhancers on the label.

80% of all antibiotics worldwide are fed to animals as part of animal agriculture - if this concerns you, please cut down your consumption of animal produce (or, even better, go vegan).

The reason my son has so many is because of a chest infection he just hasnt shifted. He is on salbutamol 4 hourly and clenin 4 times a day as well as around 7 courses of steroids in the same period. He has been referred to peads but his appointnent is not until early march

Just to jump in here, I'm a HCP working with elderly patients in a home. If we ring the GP and they have a positive result for a UTI, antibiotics are routinely prescribed yet half the time they don't thoroughly clear the infection as the patients are pretty much immune :/.

However pressure is on us and the GPs to make sure something is being done when everything other Avenue (toileting programmes, very regular intake of clear fluids etc) is exhausted because very quickly it can cause complications. One patient ended up I hospital because of the GP's reluctance to prescribe them for a standard UTI. They ended up having super strong ABX through IV!

For someone in their late 80s-90s, after a lifetime of antibiotics and other drugs, resistance is a real concern of ours, the GP's and the patients and their families. Because what answer do we give the CQC, HSE or coroner when someone drops dead as a result of a chest infection or UTI despite being given ABX? The answer "resistance" won't satisfy so we have to document every step of every process and phone call to show we did everything we could.

Maybe generations behind who aren't exposed to as many ABX will fair better with them in old age, who knows?

teainbed
Well I do hope you are not a gp with your nasty attitude and mouth.
If you wanted to try and change my opinion your aggressive vulgar non informative message isn’t going to help much is it?
I have four close family members who are GPs and I tend to believe what they tell me and what i see with my own eyes. If you feel that incensed about my comment why not rep,y with a link which might persuade me to re think my views? Being a twat is hardly going to change my stance is it? And I am always open to having my mind changed. But it would need to be a convincing argument backed up with evidence rather than a fuck off.
Oh, and fuck off yourself. Hope you have a goodnight!

Sorry to hear that Bbbbbbbb2017. Is he okay in himself, apart from the cough/wheeze? We had to take my elder daughter to A&E when she was 2, when a persistent cough deteriorated and she just looked really ill and went very quiet (on a Sunday, needless to say: she'd already seen the out-of-hours GP and was due to see the regular GP the next day). She needed intravenous antibiotics and physiotherapy to shift the mucus & pus, so she was in hospital for 2 or 3 days. Was your little boy already on salbutamol & beclometasone (Clenil) for asthma, or is all the medication for his bronchitis?

Bbbb has he had x rays/sputum tests to check what is actually going on?

Skiiltan You're not waffling at all. In fact, I'm surprised at how much I've understood from your very eloquent posts. It's very frightening how things are going.

Yorkshire I am not a GP but am a healthcare professional, work closely with and have friends who are GPs. I'm sure they'd love to know which part of the country they could move to for the easy and highly paid life you portray. Many GPs here are working 12 hour days, under huge pressure and dramatically understaffed in a deprived area with high demands. Most earn far less than £100k

Many GPs who you see as working part-time hold other roles, such as at the hospice, specialist clinics, etc.

While I wouldn't dream of telling you to fuck off for expressing an opinion, as the friend of a GP who has just had a total breakdown involving suicide attempts and triggering mental health issues meaning he is unlikely to ever return to work, I think your views are unpleasant and insulting to all those in the NHS working under pressure

Skiiltan

Thank you- I never understood the importance before, just knew it was the done thing. Quite scary when you think about it.

I didn't want to ask for anti biotics or waste the drs time but I ended with chest sepsis and almost died so now I take any anti biotics I can get hold of until I can see a dr.
It is not pleasant being told you will not last the night so I take no notice of preachers

I take any anti biotics I can get hold of until I can see a dr

Or you could go to a walk in center or A&E if you think you have something that can't wait. Taking any old antibiotic you can find is bad for you and bad for the rest of us.

Do excuse me for "preaching" as you put it, but estimates that 10 million people will die per year due to antibiotic resistance in the near future are something I think we should be concerned about.

And taking any old antibiotic won’t do anything to help with any potential infection unless by some chance it is the right one for that specific infection!

Sirzy the GP wont touch him with a barge pole they womt change anything until the peads see him.

He is 15 months and has had sepsis before so i think there is extra caution

Buy British. No hormones and farmers do try not to use antibiotics but on occasion they are needed. Most people wouldn't deny their pets the correct medical treatment so to expect farmers to allow sheep, cows, pigs etc suffer is not fair. There is no NHS for farm animals, antibiotics are expensive so are not used routinely just for the sake of it. As for buying organic, organically reared animals are treated with the exactly the same antibiotics, the withdraw period is longer.
In some countries (USA) hormones and antibiotics are used as a matter of course. British farmers have long be aware of the potential dangers of antibiotic resistance and have been working hard to reduce antibiotic usage.

For someone in their late 80s-90s, after a lifetime of antibiotics and other drugs, resistance is a real concern of ours,

It's not the patient who develops a resistance. It's the bacteria and that applies whether the person with an infection is 8 or 80.

Gabilan that not quite true. You can have healthy bacteria in your body that are antibiotic resistant due to too many antibiotic use. If those bacteria get into the blood stream via an injury or tear etc. Then the infection is very hard to treat.

Yorkshire.
Thanks for reminding me once again that hell will freeze over before I allow any of my kids to follow me into medicine.

Well yorkshire mummy, if it is so very easy and money for virtually no work then why don't you do it? You could retrain to be a GP. And also, perhaps you could explain why this country is struggling to recruit and retain GPs if it is an easy, low stress yet well paid job? I'm a Dr but not a GP. Attitudes likes yours stink, quite frankly.

I've just seen your pref post yorkshiremummy- please do tell where these GP posts are where everything is easy, low stress and so on? I am surprised that it "so easy" and your family members have told you this.

I'm a Dr, not a GP, but I have quite a few friends who are and know many others in a professional capacity. They (and a colleague who is a GP with specialist interest and works alongside us part-time whilst working part time in GP) who would be VERY interested in knowing where these fabled "easy" jobs are to be found. Round here primary care is in not in a good place with high number of job vacancies, significant difficulties in getting locum's to cover (making it very difficult for GPs to take their annual leave in some instances) and quite a high attrition rate. Many of my friends are working far later than the 6pm close time and starting well before the 8am opening time. Many are working at weekends too- for various reasons but often going paperwork and practice business that they cannot do during the day as they are stretched seeing patients due to aforementioned staff pressures. Others work in OOH.

Because, to be honest, I think your relatives are in a very substantial minority in finding work low volume, low stress and easy.

Jacks11
Since you are a doctor ( and I’m going to assume a Doctor in the commonly held medical doctor sense as opposed to a Doctor of x, y, or z) I know that you would have to be intelligent to have the necessary qualifications to train and become one.
So in light of this I don’t understand why you are quoting back to me (“so easy”, where everything is easy, low stress, low volume ) things I didn’t write! If you don’t agree with me and want to criticise my post then that’s fine but don’t quote back to me things which I most clearly did NOT say. Play fair.
A cousin of mine was a doctor in a large hospital. He was a registrar on a surgical ward and transferred to A&E. The hours and stress nearly killed him. Before he had a complete breakdown he took a break and then re trained as a GP. He does set hours (pretty much. Not down to the last minute ) , no evening work, no weekend work, no never ending shifts.
And it’s a fact that since the Labour government in 2004 changed the GP’s contracts over 90% of practices opted out of providing out of hours care to their patients putting an unbelievable strain on A&E. In the tax year of 2013/14 gps average salary dropped below £100,000 for the first time since the renegotiation of contracts in 2004. It’s back over £100k now, it bounced back the next year. I’m not - and didn’t - say that a gps job is stress free. But I think it’s a damn sight less stressful than a doctor or nurse working night shifts on a weekend in A&E. And a damn sight better paid too.
Wether you like it or not GP’s earn , on average nearly FOUR TIMES the average salary. They DO NOT have to work evenings and weekends, bank holidays.
I’m disappointed that since you are a doctor you chose to use your posts simply to critisize me and my posts/opinions and not give any comment or opinion on the frightening facts surrounding antibiotics which are from a lot of people’s experiences being handed out still with too much regularity by our doctors. Why would you not comment on that which is obviously a damn sight more important than what one woman thinks of gp’s.? And whose argument is quantified by attempting to use things against me which I didn’t even say!

Please, you obviously have been blessed with a brain. So comment on the important point of the thread. If you care to look you will see that the majority of my first post is about the worry I have of overused antibiotics.
I acknowledged that I missed the point of the thread. No point dragging it out anymore.

Ok I’ll bite.
Yorkshire. What is your explanation for why we can’t recruit GPs? Why are all my colleagues leaving in their droves for Australia or NZ? Why are those who can retire, doing it ASAP?
In some cases it’s for better pay and conditions.In some cases it’s because their pensions are good enough to retire (lucky them)
Why then does nobody apply for the vacancies that are left when these GPs are lost? Why would I not encourage any of my kids to consider becoming a GP for the so-called £100k pay
Could it be because your ‘facts’ gleaned from a fairly distant relative are wrong?

Do people realise that, in terminal and elderly care, some people are given a course of antibiotics every few weeks in order to keep them alive? Their relatives kick off if they’re not treated

and in other cases their relatives kick off because they are being kept alive artificially. My uncle is 90, has advanced dementia and has been treated with antibiotics for a chest infection. To what end? What is the point? He has no idea of where or who he is. Why not let him slip away gently?

Antibiotics ARE routinely used in agriculture, eg in battery chickens to prevent them getting ill because they are kept in such awful conditions.

Yes exactly Iprefercoffee why are some old people who have no quality of life at all (who actually want to die) kept alive with ABs . steroids etc. ? They should be allowed to "slip away gently" As you said.

We don't treat our pets like it

So few people think to themselves "I don't want to get ill so I'll eat healthily,I'll stop eating rubbish and the foods that give me bad reactions".

Prevention is ALWAYS better than cure (especially as you can't be guaranteed a cure now)!!

On at least ten occasions that I can think of over the last few years, I;ve been at the GP for myself or one of the children and been prescribed antibiotics for in a few days, just in case the problem hasn't resolved. "We don't usually prescribe antibiotics for this as it's usually viral, but I'll do you a prescription just in case it hasn't cleared up by next week" - that sort of thing.

I imagine that rather a lot of people, being ill and in possibly pain, will think "stuff waiting" and pick up the prescription on their way home to get started with it straight away. As I did on one occasion with a raging UTI that was so painful I couldn't face waiting another few days to see if it went by itself.

I can see exactly why GPs do this, of course. You can't tell a patient to come back in for another appointment in a few days time if they're still ill, when it takes weeks to get an appointment sometimes!

Still, this is a drop in the ocean compared to use in agriculture and in countries where you can just buy antibiotics over the counter, no questions asked.