Originally posted by the Bear:
viruses are not affected by anti-biotics... ceecookie, if you don't
know what you're talking about, please cease and desist...
to finish it, you kill the bacteria that is causing the
infection totally...
if you stop, the medication level drops and the residual
bacteria develops an immunity to the anti-biotics.. you
may not be infected anymore but that bacteria may spread to others
who are affected and infected...
and now, the anti-biotics are useless because of the resistance to
the medication..
you read about superbugs which are resistent to drugs.. well, now
you know where you get these things from..
they're from the irresponsible people who do not finish their
anti-biotics!
Yeah... concentrate on the bolded sentences... the resistance
increases because of the high chance of the bacteria to evolve or
mutate in other sense to another group of bacteria (but still same
family) which is now resistant to the current common antibiotic
that is prescribed for the main problem. The next time when you
develop the same infection (reinfection), the common antibiotic may
render to be useless now. So that's why you have to get a more
expensive and more powerful antibiotic.
Penicillin used to be the famous medication prescribed so commonly,
but resistance by certain bacteria is so great, that they have to
progress onwards to broader spectrum (bigger coverage of bacteria)
drugs to kill more effectively.
