Should You Take All Your Antibiotics Once You Feel Better? Doctors Are Saying No

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How often has a doctor advised you to “take every pill in the bottle” when you’re on a course of antibiotics. It seems like common sense, right? And, until recently, it was largely seen as solid advice. But new concerns about antibiotic-resistant superbugs have some questioning what turns out to be a bit of doctor’s advice without much science behind it.

Stat News has a good breakdown of the current debate between whether you should finish an antibiotic course if you feel better or just toss the pills. Until recently, the logic was straightforward: If you don’t finish the course, only the organisms most resistant to the drug would be left alive to potentially reinfect you or hop onto somebody else and become more drug-resistant that way.

One small problem: It turns out there’s never been a single study or piece of scientific evidence that proves this is the case. Instead this advice has its roots in the medicine of the 1940s, when antibiotic resistance wasn’t a thing and doctors would rather play it safe and kill all the bugs rather than wind up with a dead patient. In the modern day, though, unnecessary antibiotic use is seen as one of the key culprits to our superbug problem in the first place. So the debate boils down to: If you feel better, should you take that as a sign to stop the antibiotics?

A World Health Organization study suggests doctors check in with patients:

…in many cases an argument can be made for stopping a course of antibiotics immediately after a bacterial infection has been ruled out or is unlikely (for instance in case of viral respiratory tract infections); or when the signs and symptoms of a mild infection have disappeared. Hence, in communication campaigns against antibiotic resistance, the “complete the course” message might be confusing, in comparison with other messages that are more directly connected to the objective of decreasing antibiotic resistance.

In other words, you may not need to complete the course, but it’s not really clear that patients fully grasp that. Part of the problem is that nobody really knows just how long you should be taking antibiotics in the first place. In some cases a shorter course makes sense, and in others, researchers are finding you need a longer course. So before you pop the next pill, talk to your doctor and see if it’s worth it. It might save a life in the future.

(Via Stat News)

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