Article: Resistance to antibiotics risks health 'catastrophe'

Antibiotic resistance is a huge problem. A lot of people are currently working on finding new antibiotics (new ones haven't been introduced in decades), and finding ways to make bacteria more sensitive to older antibiotics.

Antibiotics triggered my last two flares--even more reason for me to avoid them when they're not absolutely necessary!

this is EXACTLY why i disagree with long term antibiotic treatment for our disease. i feel like antibiotics are for when you just have a bacterial infection that can't be treated without it. doctors are so careless with handing them out like candy. my doctor gave me a 6 month course of vancomycin to treat my UC. i know the vanco worked great for my C diff so i want to "save" vanco for C diff occurrances and not build up an immunity to it. flagyl already does nothing for me so that antibiotic is worthless.

obviously, antibiotics can save your life when you are really sick and i think they are an amazing medication. it's just scary to think that people can't be treated with them affectively anymore.

It's just a theory, but antibiotic resistance could be due to 1) overuse and 2) presence of antibiotics in our food (meat, fish, chicken, dairy, and fruit) .

I agree bananagirl, they are useful in serious situations.

What happens is that antibiotics kill most of the bacteria, but because bacteria reproduce rapidly, they accumulate (over time/reproductive cycles) some mutations. If a bacterium acquires a mutation that ALSO happens to provide resistance to a particular antibiotic, then it'll survive treatment, and then reproduce.

This isn't something that happens in one given patient--over time, we inadvertently select for strains of bacteria that are resistant to the antibiotics at our disposal. By reducing antibiotic use, and restricting it for when it's absolutely necessary, we slow down resistance. Hopefully, we'll develop new antibiotics or ways to induce sensitivity to current ones.

... I don't think there's a "unique voodoo" effect that induces mutations ...

I don't like being immunosuppressed, but to me, it's going to be more annoying for viral infections anyway. With bacterial infections, antibiotics are the correct treatment. It's just obnoxious when antibiotics get prescribed for viral infections, whether it's a doctor throwing every treatment at a patient, or a patient insisting on antibiotics. Antibiotics don't help viral infections.

That's also why folks are not supposed to stop taking antibiotics until the course is over, as opposed to when they start feeling better. Otherwise, you increase the likelihood that less-sensitive bacteria will be spared, and go on to eventually give rise to resistant strains.