AIBU to B amazed at how many people still don't seem to have a clue about antibiotics?

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Talking a work colleague the other day... I happened to mention that I have a heavy cold/sore throat. He said "Oh, I have some antibiotics if you want them". Turned out he'd been prescribed them for something a few months ago, took them for a few days, felt better, stopped taking them and kept them in case he needed them for something else.

I pointed out that you're meant to finish the whole course, you can't just keep some for later; you also can't really just give prescription medicine to other people, and anyway it was unlikely that they'd work on a cold.

Several other colleagues were there. One agreed with me, one basically seemed to be hearing this for the first time, and the other two thought there was nothing wrong with what he was doing and "they're way too fussy about antibiotics now, they used to hand them out all the time and it was fine".

AIBU to be quite shocked that so many people (all well-educated, all have lived here for years ago so shouldn't have missed the campaigns) were blatantly not that fussed about casually taking antibiotics? I'm religious about finishing the course, not taking them unless I need to etc, and I assumed most people were too.

I get that there are bigger issues with antibiotic resistance (farming etc) but still, it's important to do what we can. And you should never hand out drugs to someone else or take them from them!

I don't see people buying them for no reason andpoppi g the left right and centre.

onioncrumble. What an utterly ridiculous statement. Do you have the power to observe every shop/pharmacy where you live and observe every single person’s purchases? Of course you don’t. Just because you don’t personally see something doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Try opening up your mind a bit.

And btw, while you’re merrily popping your ‘metronidazole type’ antibiotics I hope you’re aware that using alcohol concurrently can cause breathing difficulties? But no, I suppose you haven’t seen that either which means it isn’t true. 🙄

It does though. Why should people be denied treatment or be expected to suffer from agonizing dental pain just because some GPs are a bit thick and don't understand how to ores ribe and because access to life saving treatment is not there? People need to be able to self medicate

Ok let me think.

Who is more likely to be a “bit thick”. A GP who has achieved top grades at school and has trained for and passed many more exams to reach their current position, diagnosing, and prescribing....

Or Dave who feels he should be allowed to self medicate without any of the above training, and without any drug knowledge at all...

I take antibiotics quite frequently for UTI's. I don't want to but I've tried d-mannose, cranberry juice the drinks. Nothing works and yes, there is always an infection present in my urine sample.
I have antibiotics on standby from my GP because the infections can be painful and debilitating, causing me to miss work.
I find it incredibly worrying that could end up with a resistant type of bacteria however the alternative is severe discomfort and ironically possible kidney infections needing even stronger antibiotics.
I don't think anyone should be taking them without a doctors advice, or not finishing the course however not everyone can avoid them.

Just to add, I drink lots of water, pee after sex, don't use scented products down there, wipe front to back, wear cotton pants and drink only a glass or two of wine a week.

Eventually people will start to become resistant to certain medications if they take them too often People won't become resistant, bacteria will.

bluebluezoo Who is more likely to be a “bit thick”. A GP who has achieved top grades at school and has trained for and passed many more exams to reach their current position, diagnosing, and prescribing....

Or Dave who feels he should be allowed to self medicate without any of the above training, and without any drug knowledge at all...

We are not all Daves though. I'm a solicitor, and part of my skills it to be able to develop a working knowledge of specialist sectors within a short period of time, so as to argue a case. I've done medical negligence work. Its not rocket science. I also have all "A"s, including Human Biology and Chemistry, and while I'm no doctor, I'm less than impressed with some GPs.

As was the A&E consultant who had to see my twice in two weeks, firstly because my GP failed to diagnose and treat me for pneumonia and then, when it had been diagnosed and me prescribed penicillin for, failing to spot that it was an A-typical type and that I was not responding. While waiting for the ambulance, I googled it and decided I needed a macrolide or a tetracyline, preferably the former and something like Clarithromycin. There are various indicators for this which are fairly easily understood to anyone with a reasonable science background. The A&E doctor agreed with me. I was extremely ill by this time and I have scarring on my lungs as a result of that bloody GP's inability to diagnose and treat pneumonia and listen to what a patient was telling him.

I think its quite wise to be sceptical of some GPs. Some, of course, are excellent. I thought mine was. He really wasn't, and I changed practices.

@qualcheckbot

The fact that a very small %of the population can educate themselves, and that as with every profession a small
% aren’t up to standard, is not justification to take medicines off prescription and let people self medicate.

I’m a toxicologist. Part of my job was reviewing whether certain drugs could come off prescription.

Generally speaking, most people do not have the capability to understand drugs, their risks and benefits. People would harm themselves every day if we gave free access to drugs.

My DH's elderly grandad (96) was very poorly last year, and was hospitalised after an emergency op. He then needed antibiotics and they saved his life - the doctors said the fact he'd never, ever had antibiotics before meant that the ones they used worked really well and very quickly.

I dong understand this - one doesn’t become resistant to antibiotics? They don’t stay in the body either. So how would the antibiotics work better and more quickly?

In many countries you can buy them OTC. A friend from Iran said they all just buy them when they want. She comes back to Europe with them just in case. So I'm unsure how much difference it will make trying to restrict the use if other countries just pop them whenever they feel a bit under the weather. Not saying we shouldn't try but I'm not sure what effect it will have

So I'm unsure how much difference it will make trying to restrict the use if other countries just pop them whenever they feel a bit under the weather. The prophylactic use in agriculture didn't help either.

"The doctors said the fact he'd never, ever had antibiotics before meant that the ones they used worked really well and very quickly"
Sounds like bollocks to me.

This is part of the issue. People dont realise that them not finishing the course antibiotics doesn't just affect them, but anyone else who becomes infected with the bacteria they have. Because the bacteria become resistant, not the patient.

I teach science in a secondary school and we teach antibiotic resistance and the fact that they don't work for viruses and why. So many kids just don't get it /don't remember. They talk about patients becoming immune to antibiotics or becoming resistant to bacteria.

In many countries you can buy them OTC. A friend from Iran said they all just buy them when they want. She comes back to Europe with them just in case. So I'm unsure how much difference it will make trying to restrict the use if other countries just pop them whenever they feel a bit under the weather.

I tend to agree with this. Global control is needed. In the uk there are so many restrictions that a significant minority of people don’t get them prescribed when needed and end up at A&E. In Greece and many other countries you can buy them OTC like smarties. Yin and yang, 2 ends of the scale.

A friend from Iran said they all just buy them when they want. She comes back to Europe with them just in case.

How often does she use them? Does she pop them down like candy for every sniffle? Does she offer them to all and sundry?

‘People need to be able to self medicate’

Nobody should self medicate with antibiotics. Without proper training you don’t know what kind of infection you are treating (e.g. virus, bacteria, fungus), inappropriate use leads to AR.

You also might kill yourself, for example: those allergic to penicillin also have a slight chance of being allergic to cephalosporins too, you wouldn’t know that without appropriate training.

I know someone who buys over the counter ABs when holidaying overseas and then dishes them out to her kids for everything including threadworms.

People need to be able to self medicate’

Yes. Because that never caused any problems.

For those saying they want to be able to buy their own antibiotics, how on earth would people know which ones to buy without input from a GP or pharmacist?

I'm a doctor and it took me years to understand which antibiotics for which condition, the most likely bacterial strains for different diseases, and which group of patients would get which drugs. Antibiotic prescribing even varies by region as different regions have different strains of disease.

Googling often comes up with an answer that is incorrect for the region or for the condition, or that is incorrect because of the other conditions that patient has. And sometimes there are other patient factors that would contraindicate the use of one or the other (those that cause c diff etc being avoided more in the elderly) which doesn't pop up on a google search.

There's also the risk of people with viral infections becoming more ill on antibiotics because many antibiotics make people feel ill anyway. So not only do they have a virus, but now they're shitting through the eye of a needle and throwing up all their lemsip.

It's idiotic.

Also- yes it's sad to end up in A&E 2 days after a gp appt. But if you weren't displaying any worrying signs during the appoimtment, the advice is to go away and return if it worsens. That's what amy good GP would do. Otherwise they waiting times at A&E wouldn't be 4 hours. They'd be 4 days.

When I did my first GP rotation there was a woman who came in the day after her bloods has been taken for an annual review. Her Hb was 125. Totally normal. I sent her home with reassurance. She presented to A&E 2 days later with a Hb of 65. She'd had a massive bleed into her intestine in the interim. She was angry I hadn't picked it up at her gp appointment. I told her her hb was 125 at the time. That's better than mine is as I type this... no one apart from mystic meg could have predicted she would have that bleed. Doctors can't do magic. We try to predict the future based on current symptoms but in some cases it's impossible.

My son has a condition that means he's on antibiotics everyday of his life and has been now for 15 years, sometimes he has 5 different ones running through him.
Yesterday we got the news that the chronic pseudomonas he is colonised with has become resistant to every antibiotic they've tested it against.
AR isn't a joke, it's not something to shrug your shoulders at. It's really fucking serious, for everybody.
Mankind will be wiped out long before climate change gets us, by disease and conditions we could once get rid of, we're heading back to a time where we can't treat things anymore because we won't have antibiotics that work.

*He then needed antibiotics and they saved his life - the doctors said the fact he'd never, ever had antibiotics before meant that the ones they used worked really well and very quickly.

I dong understand this - one doesn’t become resistant to antibiotics? They don’t stay in the body either. So how would the antibiotics work better and more quickly?*

Possibly that if the infection has arisen from his endogenous bacterial population, they would have never “seen” ab’s and therefore would be sensitive.

I agree with you but also do what he does. I only take them until I feel my own body taking over, never finish the full course ever, because of AR

And that’s a contributory factor to AR 😤

Also- yes it's sad to end up in A&E 2 days after a gp appt. But if you weren't displaying any worrying signs during the appoimtment, the advice is to go away and return if it worsens. That's what amy good GP would do. Otherwise they waiting times at A&E wouldn't be 4 hours. They'd be 4 days.

I was displaying redness and bad swelling round a wound. I don’t think the hospital thought she should have sent me to a&e but that she should have put me on antibiotics. I have no clue if they’re right - presumably as a hospital consultant they’re only seeing the patients where wait and see didn’t work so they may well have a skewed view.

Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to humanity in modern times. It's scary how uneducated people are, and even when they're told how dangerous their actions are people shake it off as not a big deal.

Prime example...@TheDarkPassenger
When the antibiotics fail to treat your infection due to AR and the infection ends up killing you, I'm sure you'll be wishing you could have had an upset tummy for a few days instead.

Thank you for this thread, AR makes a lot more sense to me now and I feel very dense for only having an airy fairy notion of it before!

I think the worst thing is the lack of care for how your shitty action effect others, very much like antivaxxers. It's all selfish people who don't give a toss about heard immunity and how allowing bacteria to mutate and grow stronger you're condemning everyone else because you can't be bothered to listen and take care when treating your ills.

I don't care if you die of an infection because you've abused antibiotics but I very much care if someone I love then gets your super resistant strain of something and does, ugh why are humans so fucking shit?!

I’ve got a bowel disease so I take probiotics already :( I also have a lot of vulnerable clients I can’t just be taking days off here and there unfortunately and I travel for work. I already said I take on board the advice and knowledge about AR and admitted I didn’t know that. I’m not Stupid just because I don’t know about medical stuff, I have zero interest in it so how would I know?
Honestly though I’ve tried everything not to physically shit myself on antibiotics but nothing has worked so far... I’ll be honest I usually try to cope fully without. If I die, I die, I’ve stopped being afraid after my third suicide attempt if I’m totally honest.
Genuinely thankful for the knowledge though.