My wife has a friend, “Lindy,” who is, to be frank, an idiot. (Cite.). The latest permutation of Lindy’s idiocy was revealed to Kim this morning, when she was visiting her friend at her house. Kim has a summer cold, you see, which she came down with a few days after the last time she and her friend hung out. Deciding that Kim must have caught the cold from her, Lindy offered her some antibiotics. Two different antibiotics.
You see, Lindy had some extensive dental work last year. Each time she had a tooth out or whatever, she got a prescription for antibiotics. Each time she went through about half the prescribed regimen and kept the others for a rainy day. She told Kim that she gives them to her infant daughter prophylactically* to keep her from getting ear infections and so forth; and when her daughter has an actual infection and was prescribed antibiotics by her pediatrician, Lindy not infrequently cut the regimen short so she can hoard further.
Kim, not being a moron, did not take the antibiotics. When she told me about it, she said Lindy was being stupid in two ways; I corrected her by pointing out it was at least four. Clearly, actions like Lindy’s contribute to antibiotic resistance; but what should (or can) society do about it?
People will inevitably behave stupidly. I think Einstein had a quote about it, but I’m too lazy to look it up.
One solution is to ban the prescription of all antibiotics that have been shown to be vulnerable to antibiotic resistance.
Those antibiotics may only be used when supervised by physicians during treatment at a hospital. Once used, the patient may not be discharged until the entire regimen is complete.
Yes, this is draconian, but it would solve the problem. I leave it to others to debate whether we should adopt such measures.
*Quoted/paraphrased methinks.
You could let this thread run it’s course, and then send her a link via email to this thread. Or print out a hardcopy and highlight the first post so that she reads it and hopefully the rest of the thread. With enough people telling her what an ignorant dumb-ass she is she might listen.
You have no idea how big the problem is. Forget featherbrains in the US. In the Third World doctors hand out antibiotics like candy (for a modest fee). People expect and demand them from doctors. I was offered antibiotics when I mentioned to my (Sudanese) doctor that my thyroid died. The man is an idiot.
My only concern is the risk to her daughter by cutting the regime short. Other than that, she is the drop in the ocean of idiocy when it comes to pharmaceuticals.
Her logic (and I’ve spoken to her about this at Kim’s behest) is that she doesn’t see any reason to keep using the antibiotics once the patient becomes asymptomatic, and that the doctors only prescribe as long a regime as they do because of a conspiracy with the drug companies. :rolleyes: Thus as soon as she or the baby start feeling better, she stops. I tried to explain to her about the growth of antibiotic resistant bacteria, but she doesn’t believe in that, because it requires that she accept the theory fo evolution. So, in summary, her incredible stupidity may be attributed to the shared influence of Oliver Stone and Ben Stein.
Having written all that, I should say that my concern here isn’t Lindy individually, but the societal misuse of antibiotics–everything from persons as ignorant as she to large-scale idiocy. Respondents should not feel obliged to sticking to just individual morons.
You have no idea how big the problem is in the developing world. Doctors, smochters. In Africa antibiotics can be found at any one of the stalls that line any given dusty street and fill every market. Chinese and Nigerians, pills and injections. Anything you want. If you want some legitimacy, any pharmacy will give you whatever you ask for, made in France and presumably safe.
And people use them. For everything. There is no use in telling people you don’t need medicine for a cold. The truth is that antibiotics have worked plenty of miracles, and most people have seen someone brought back from the brink of death with a simple injection. And even the best doctor will prescribe antibiotics often because bacterial infections are one of the most common problems. So people have learned that when you get sick, you go to the doctor, get a shot, and get better. So when they don’t have money for the doctor (or don’t trust the doctor…pretty common and often with good reason), they just cut out the middle man.
I’ve been prescribed antibiotics for a cold in the past - a couple of occasions around 20 years ago. When I asked the doctor what he was prescribing he became a bit snarky. I assumed that he was used to patients who liked to leave with a present, or something.
This was 20 years ago, I admit, so perhaps it was common to hand over mild antibiotics as placebos or “just in case” back in those days.
My mom does this :smack: It annoys me so fucking bad but when I try to explain to her how reckless she’s acting she’ll just shrug and change the subject.
There needs to be more education and maybe a public awareness campaign about this. “Do not stop taking pills until packet is empty” is not enough because it doesn’t explain why, it doesn’t convey any sense of seriousness, and a lot of people don’t read the directions anyway, or think they only apply to everyone else.
She doesn’t finish them when she gets a Rx then takes them later when she has a cold or something. My grandma, who is a retired nurse and should know better, does the same thing and they trade.
Could those Z-pack things be a partial solution to the problem, at least in the first world? If you only have to take three pills instead of a ten day regimen, people would hopefully be less likely to not complete the course. Why are they still prescribing the weaker stuff at all?
I never finish the script, but I don’t take the remainder when I have a cold. I like to think that I’m smart enough to know when I have an infection that requires antibiotics or not.
When I get this infection, I have a ready supply of antibiotics without having to rise from my sickbed and beg permission from the doctor for them (and pay for the office visit and the associated tests that Probably Won’t Find Anything, But Just To Be Safe Because You Have Great Health Insurance). Not for me; just go to the cabinet, take the regimen and get well.
Now, people who take antibiotics because they have a cold really piss me off. They are the reason we can’t take $4 generics and have to have the latest brand name.
:rolleyes:
Do you use your mutant clairvoyant abilities to scan your internal organs to determine whether all the bacteria causing your illness have been killed? It is possible for the symptoms to subside while the infection still persists. By not finishing the regimen, you increase the odds that there may remain bacteria in your body which were exposed to the antibiotics and not killed. These reproduce and by the processses of evolution spawn offspring against which the prior drugs are less effective, or completely ineffective. This endangers not merely you but persons whom you may inadvertently expose. One cite. Another cite. A third cite. A fourth cite.
When I get this infection, I have a ready supply of antibiotics without having to rise from my sickbed and beg permission from the doctor for them (and pay for the office visit and the associated tests that Probably Won’t Find Anything, But Just To Be Safe Because You Have Great Health Insurance). Not for me; just go to the cabinet, take the regimen and get well.
Now, people who take antibiotics because they have a cold really piss me off. They are the reason we can’t take $4 generics and have to have the latest brand name.
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I’m not that smart either, when applying these rules to myself. So despite practicing medicine for 25 years, I have my own doctor check me out if I feel I might have an infection requiring antibiotics.
A doctor who prescribes for himself has a fool for a patient.
Antibiotics are serious medicine, and not to be treated cavalierly.
And abuse of Z-paks is quite prevalent these days; we’re seeing commons strains emerging which are now resistant to zithromax.