Overuse of antibitics

[Saan]

'Alarm bells have been ringing in Britain, the United States and the World Health Organization about antibiotic resistance. It seems the world is suddenly sitting up and beginning to worry about this looming catastrophe. Britain’s chief medical officer, Sally Davies, has called it a threat as great as terrorism or climate change.'

The above is the opening paragraph of a story that appeared in The Guardian. It goes on to describe how 25 million people in Europe are estimated to die each year directly because of resistance. The figure is believed to be the same in the U.S.

I wonder how much greater would the percentage of people dying in Thailand be because of the indiscriminate use of antibiotics here. I know that in my family in Chiang Mai a cold that would be shrugged off in a couple of days is instantly treated with antibiotics. Sometimes the medication is prescribed by a doctor and at other times just purchased over the counter.

Despite my constantly pointing out that antibiotics do not work on viruses my wife, I think, would feel she had failed as a mother if she did not dose her son at the first sign of a sniffle.

I have lost the battle in my family to prevent the overuse of antibiotics and am seen as uncaring when I protest.

Has anyone found an argument that will get through to Thai mothers to stop this abuse?

Perhaps the military junta could remedy this problem by requiring prescriptions for antibiotics and warning doctors about indiscriminate prescribing. They seem to have a solution for many of Thailand's other woes.

[northernjohn]

This has been a known fact since penicillin started working less. That is why the drug companies are constantly coming up with new medicines.

Would be nice to find a physician familiar with natural remedies. Don't know if their are any. I know there are a lot of self diagnosed people doing it.

[femi fan]

There are so many problems with antibiotics, direct and indirect.

Keep trying to win that argument over your kid. Ask your wife to ask her mum and dad if they ever took pills or antibiotics for colds and things. I bet they didn't. This massive prescribing of pills, a US and western fad, has only really arrived in thailand in the last generation or so. Most oldies wouldn't choose to go near an antibiotic.

When you next get a cold or something, let yourself heal naturally as an example to her.

Offer her some extra money next time your kid gets a cold to refrain from issuing any pills and to let you help your kid. Then use natural things, like nutrition and rest and drinks to fix your kid.

I will add that nearly all meats consumed are bringing antibiotics into your bodies.

The biggest problem with antibiotics is that they kill all bacteria, including all the friendly useful ones that live in our guts. When those go, candida problems set in. As for kids, it causes problems with their immunes systems which are trying to develop into some decent defence systems for their adult life.

[Sparkles]

After a very recent and painful bacterial infection of my kidneys I welcomed the fact that the prescribed antibiotics cleared it up in 4 days.

I reflected on what would have happened had antibiotics not been available but having said that the abuse of prescribing antibiotics and the fact that you can but them over the counter, without a prescription, is so wrong.

[DLock]

After a very recent and painful bacterial infection of my kidneys I welcomed the fact that the prescribed antibiotics cleared it up in 4 days.

I reflected on what would have happened had antibiotics not been available but having said that the abuse of prescribing antibiotics and the fact that you can but them over the counter, without a prescription, is so wrong.

Funny enough, I also had a bad kidney infection caused what by the Doctor thought was kidney stones. Very painful, but antibiotics cleared it up in 3 or 4 days back to normal.

I had just come back from a few weeks deep, deep, deep in African jungle and although we had plenty of medicine, I do wonder what have happened if my kidney problem had happened in Africa and we did not have proper medication.

Things like that scare me.

[hmficc]

23,000 deaths per year in the USA not 25 million.

[Saan]

23,000 deaths per year in the USA not 25 million.

Sorry, my error. It should read '25,000 for Europe are estimated....'

[northernjohn]

There are so many problems with antibiotics, direct and indirect.

Keep trying to win that argument over your kid. Ask your wife to ask her mum and dad if they ever took pills or antibiotics for colds and things. I bet they didn't. This massive prescribing of pills, a US and western fad, has only really arrived in thailand in the last generation or so. Most oldies wouldn't choose to go near an antibiotic.

When you next get a cold or something, let yourself heal naturally as an example to her.

Offer her some extra money next time your kid gets a cold to refrain from issuing any pills and to let you help your kid. Then use natural things, like nutrition and rest and drinks to fix your kid.

I will add that nearly all meats consumed are bringing antibiotics into your bodies.

The biggest problem with antibiotics is that they kill all bacteria, including all the friendly useful ones that live in our guts. When those go, candida problems set in. As for kids, it causes problems with their immunes systems which are trying to develop into some decent defence systems for their adult life.

Yet the life span continues to expand. Not that it is always a good idea.

Many out live their brain. That is a sad sight.

[sharktooth]

Went to a doc back in the uk years ago with an ear infection. He had a classic quote. "If I give you antibiotics it'll clear up in around seven days, or your body can fight it naturally and it'll be gone in about a week."

[hmficc]

Could outlive the fun bits. Much worse

[SantiSuk]

Went to a doc back in the uk years ago with an ear infection. He had a classic quote. "If I give you antibiotics it'll clear up in around seven days, or your body can fight it naturally and it'll be gone in about a week."

Nice epithet but does not always apply.

I get otitis bacterial ear infections twice a year. If I let them run they become agony within a few days and take a week to clear up. If I catch it with antibiotic ear drops (a relatively old Thai standby version costing less than 100 baht, which is just as effective as the British prescription version which costs 350 baht on the NHS or 500 baht private btw!) it goes away within 24 hours.

Lets not get manic about antibiotics running out. For years I have struggled with chest infections at the rate of 1 or 2 a year and when they reach a certain stage my doctor had usually recommended one of the standard penecillin-based antibiotics. I recently got pneumonia while visiting Chiang Mai. I mentioned to the hospital pulmonologist that the antibiotics seemed to be taking longer to work these days - like 2 weeks. He commented "not unusual for an over-60; I'll give you one of the synthetics". The pneumonia started to improve noticeably within 24 hours and cleared within a couple of weeks. I mentioned this to my lung specialist in the UK who commented "yes - people get too paranoid about antibiotics running out of efficacy - don't worry there are many different types you can get through yet.

I'm not saying that overuse of antibiotics is a nonsense, clearly it is not and I never take them until I sure it is a bacterial infection and not getting better. I'm just trying to give a bit of balance to the Turkey Lurky aproach ("the sky is falling in ....") fostered by the press at times.

[wolfmanjack]

There are so many problems with antibiotics, direct and indirect.

Keep trying to win that argument over your kid. Ask your wife to ask her mum and dad if they ever took pills or antibiotics for colds and things. I bet they didn't. This massive prescribing of pills, a US and western fad, has only really arrived in thailand in the last generation or so. Most oldies wouldn't choose to go near an antibiotic.

When you next get a cold or something, let yourself heal naturally as an example to her.

Offer her some extra money next time your kid gets a cold to refrain from issuing any pills and to let you help your kid. Then use natural things, like nutrition and rest and drinks to fix your kid.

I will add that nearly all meats consumed are bringing antibiotics into your bodies.

The biggest problem with antibiotics is that they kill all bacteria, including all the friendly useful ones that live in our guts. When those go, candida problems set in. As for kids, it causes problems with their immunes systems which are trying to develop into some decent defence systems for their adult life.

Yet the life span continues to expand. Not that it is always a good idea.

Many out live their brain. That is a sad sight.

Many have outlived their brain by their 20th birthday.

I am the one that took care and takes care of both my kids so I always let them try to fight it out without antibiotics for a few days to give their body a chance to build up its immune system. I also do not take them to the hospital for every little thing either.

[AnotherOneAmerican]

It's not the big doses of anti-biotic we take ourselves that cause the problem.

It's the drip, drip of small amounts we eat from pork, chicken and beef which get fed anti-biotic in their feed.

[AnotherOneAmerican]

After a very recent and painful bacterial infection of my kidneys I welcomed the fact that the prescribed antibiotics cleared it up in 4 days.

I reflected on what would have happened had antibiotics not been available but having said that the abuse of prescribing antibiotics and the fact that you can but them over the counter, without a prescription, is so wrong.

Funny enough, I also had a bad kidney infection caused what by the Doctor thought was kidney stones. Very painful, but antibiotics cleared it up in 3 or 4 days back to normal.

I had just come back from a few weeks deep, deep, deep in African jungle and although we had plenty of medicine, I do wonder what have happened if my kidney problem had happened in Africa and we did not have proper medication.

Things like that scare me.

Carry a cipro 500 course in your med kit.

100bht, powerful and effective.

[chiang mai]

It annoys me no end but I'm forced to agree that AOA is right on this point, for a change.

[femi fan]

Yet the life span continues to expand. Not that it is always a good idea.

Many out live their brain. That is a sad sight.

We can't know that life span continues to expand. The stats don't tell us that. They simply tell us the 'average' lifespan increases. But nobody is 'average'. And with way less infant mortality, just for one example, it's obvious how the average span can go up.

But you've hinted at the real phenonmenon. So many old people are literally kept alive by pills, stuck in old people's homes, barely able to know themselves so drugged up on painkillers and other assorted pills they are. But they're useful, because they push up the average age of people before they die.

Makes it look like all these antibiotics and pills and chemo and all the other allopathic tools are actually working.

Many doctors have come to the clear conclusiong that we are sitting on a timebomb when it comes to antibiotics, which in fact is already ticking away.

All we have to do is embrace preventative health care. But that's a most serious interference with the profits of big food and big pharma companies who are simultaneously feeding us poison and fixing our symptoms with poison.

Education is our weapon. Self-education is even more dangerous to their money-making operations. Go for it!

[femi fan]

I'm not saying that overuse of antibiotics is a nonsense, clearly it is not and I never take them until I sure it is a bacterial infection and not getting better. I'm just trying to give a bit of balance to the Turkey Lurky aproach ("the sky is falling in ....") fostered by the press at times.

Have you ever considered that you keep on getting infections because you keep on using antibiotics to get rid of them? It may well be that antibiotics simply treat the symptom, ie infection. But each time they have to work on the symptom it takes them longer and they have to work harder. Meanwhile your cause goes unnoticed.

That's the trouble with allopathic medicine, the body slowly becomes immune to it, and we never get told what the cause of our problems is, so it can just keep coming back again and again.

But it's highly profitable that way.

[MMan]

I don't like taking antibiotics. After a couple of days the side effects from the antibiotics are usually making me feel worse than whatever it was prescribed for.

Glad the number was corrected from 25 million to 25 thousand as I was afraid there would be no more Europeans and no more Americans in about 12 years time 5555

..

[AnotherOneAmerican]

I don't like taking antibiotics. After a couple of days the side effects from the antibiotics are usually making me feel worse than whatever it was prescribed for.

When I take an anti-biotic, I'm usually feeling much better after a few hours.

But I know the difference between a viral and a bacterial infection.

[northernjohn]

There are so many problems with antibiotics, direct and indirect.

Keep trying to win that argument over your kid. Ask your wife to ask her mum and dad if they ever took pills or antibiotics for colds and things. I bet they didn't. This massive prescribing of pills, a US and western fad, has only really arrived in thailand in the last generation or so. Most oldies wouldn't choose to go near an antibiotic.

When you next get a cold or something, let yourself heal naturally as an example to her.

Offer her some extra money next time your kid gets a cold to refrain from issuing any pills and to let you help your kid. Then use natural things, like nutrition and rest and drinks to fix your kid.

I will add that nearly all meats consumed are bringing antibiotics into your bodies.

The biggest problem with antibiotics is that they kill all bacteria, including all the friendly useful ones that live in our guts. When those go, candida problems set in. As for kids, it causes problems with their immunes systems which are trying to develop into some decent defence systems for their adult life.

Yet the life span continues to expand. Not that it is always a good idea.

Many out live their brain. That is a sad sight.

Many have outlived their brain by their 20th birthday.

I am the one that took care and takes care of both my kids so I always let them try to fight it out without antibiotics for a few days to give their body a chance to build up its immune system. I also do not take them to the hospital for every little thing either.

Excellent idea.

The ones who take real good care of their kids health and take them to the doctor every time some thing turns up feel good about it. But as you say when the kid grows up they really don't have any automatic defenses.

I was referring to old people with no real sense of what is going on. On several occasions I have been in places where they take care of them. Pretty sad sights. Sitting in wheel chairs staring off into space all their waking hours. Bed ridden to the point where they can not do any thing including clean them selves up and are unaware of you. It is not a pretty sight. But hey they ate healthy food.

I have a sister 60 years old with the loss of memory disease. she is OK now it is early. But not going to be pretty later.

Personally I think there is never much thought about quality of life it is more length of life for some.

[hmficc]

After a very recent and painful bacterial infection of my kidneys I welcomed the fact that the prescribed antibiotics cleared it up in 4 days.

I reflected on what would have happened had antibiotics not been available but having said that the abuse of prescribing antibiotics and the fact that you can but them over the counter, without a prescription, is so wrong.

Funny enough, I also had a bad kidney infection caused what by the Doctor thought was kidney stones. Very painful, but antibiotics cleared it up in 3 or 4 days back to normal.

I had just come back from a few weeks deep, deep, deep in African jungle and although we had plenty of medicine, I do wonder what have happened if my kidney problem had happened in Africa and we did not have proper medication.

Things like that scare me.

Carry a cipro 500 course in your med kit.

100bht, powerful and effective.

[hmficc]

Every med is also a poison. Save your life or like me leave you with life long nerve damage causing constant pain in my feet.

[Somtamme]

What you can say to your wife?

It comes down to getting the correct message across, in a way that she will really take on board what is being said.

As a starting point if her English is up to it, suggests she watches this BBC documentary presented by Dr Michael Mosley on infection control. Towards the end of this episode it explains why we should not be so complacent with the over use of anti-biotics i.e. not to go back to periods when resistant infections were common place;

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LqFA5JHCUis

[Saan]

My fading memory has just returned to me another reason not to give some antibiotics to children - it can damage the enamel of their permanent teeth. In the worst case it can leave then pitted and with brown stains.

In my original post I was not taking a stand against the use of antibiotics but against the indiscriminate use for minor infections and the use against viruses which cannot be treated by antibiotics.