So I know if you take antibiotics, and you stop once you feel better, can cause the infections to come back even worse and you might possibly develop a antibiotic resistance but what’s the difference between that and finishing your medication? For example, my antibiotics I take 2 a day for 7 days. How does finishing my medication not cause a resistance?
In: Biology
If you stop early, its fairly likely some of the bacteria will survive the treatment. Those that do are going to be those already resistant to the antibiotics you were prescribed. Basically, taking antibiotics creates a strong evolutionary pressure towards antibiotic resistance as those traits are required for the bacteria to survive.
If you take all of your medication, its very likely all of the bacteria will be killed off between the antibiotics and your immune system, thus leaving nothing to evolve a resistance. The treatment regime is generally tuned to ensure an extremely low survival rate for the disease.
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