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BGonline.org Forums
Where the hell is Chuck Bower!?
Posted By: happyjuggler0 In Response To: Where the hell is Chuck Bower!? (Chuck Bower)
Date: Wednesday, 23 April 2008, at 3:48 p.m.
I'm pretty sure that stopping early can lead to strain resistant bacteria
It tends to work that way.
For one's own sake, you need to keep taking the antibiotics for as long as your doctor says so that the little bugger is dead, dead, dead, and doesn't rise from the ashes of defeat at the last moment to bite you on the ass, forcing you to start a new regimen all over again.
But as Chuck alludes to, if you allow the bug to survive after being attacked by antibiotics, it tends to evolve its own defense mechanisms (effectively anyway) so as to repel another attack from the same medicine.
This sort of thing tends to happen more in poor countries where the population is ignorant of anything they can't see with their own eyes, and they don't quite get it. But they do know they are poor, and that they are feeling better, so in their collective minds, they are like "why not sell the excess medicine and make some much needed money?". This using of antibiotics in likely innappropriate ways by third parties also leads to drug resistence as well, so there is a double whammy.
As a result, TB, one of the nastiest bugs out there, is often highly (multiple) drug resistent, and something that once was relatively rare in the US and highly treatable is on the verge of becoming common and dangerously (as in deaths) hard to treat.
So even if you are foolish enough to play roulette with your own health and not finish taking all your medicine like your doctor says, do it for humanity. < /playing violins >
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