When you are placed on the antibiotic treatment course, it is very important to finish the treatment even when you start feeling better, most doctors advise.
Antibiotics are normally used to treat infection that is usually cause by bacteria. The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that “feeling better, or an improvement in symptoms, does not always mean that the infection has completely gone. Your doctor has had years of training and has access to the latest evidence – so always follow their advice.”
Dr Linda Yancey, MD, infectious disease specialist at Memorial Hermann Health System states that each an every pill placed in a bottle is given to you for a reason. Linda adds that the medications need time to destroy the bacteria in your body. Not finishing the course of pills you’re prescribed simply because you feel better or your symptoms subsided is not good for your overall health.
Well and Good provides the following explanation when it comes to finishing your antibiotics course.
“When you take too short of an antibacterial course, it can have two effects. First, it is possible that your infection won’t be entirely obliterated—even if you start to feel better. If you take enough of your antibiotics to reduce, say, 70 percent of the bacterium in your body, sure, your symptoms might subside. But the 30 percent of bacteria that are left can increase in a few days or weeks,” Dr Yancey explains.
Not only can they replicate—but bacteria can also change, and like all living things, they can grow more robust to survive. If you introduce a specific antibiotic into your system to fight these invaders—you want them to kill them completely, Dr Yancey says. Introducing medicine into your system to only kill a portion of the infection can actually offer bacteria a chance to replicate in a way that can fight against the medication. This means that there’s a chance that the infection could resist your medicine and be harder to kill when you start a medicine again.
Also see: Side effects of morning-after pills you should know
