how does not finishing a course of antibiotics cause antibiotic resistance?
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Bacteria have wildly varying genes. A small number of bacteria are naturally resistant to anti biotics. Most resistant bacteria are still hurt by anti biotics, but need a longer exposure to get destroyed.
Without anti biotics, there is no reason for the resistant bacteria to have an advantage. Do they only make up a small number of the bacteria infecting you.
If you take anti biotics long enough to kill the nonresistant bacteria, but not long enough to completely kill the resistant bacteria, you’ll give the resistant bacteria an advantage. So once the nonresistant bacteria are gone and you stop taking the anti biotics, the resistant ones can start multiplying again and cause an infection primarily caused by resistant bacteria.
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