If you use antibiotics incorrectly, could you render the medication useless?

Answer 1

The antibiotics won't be rendered useless unless they are the type that bind with certain molecules ( for instance, dairy ) If you don't take the antibiotics for the specified amount of time in the correct dosages consecutively, what ends up happening is that the germs will build up resistance to that particular antibiotic and that antibiotic won't work in destroying the germs. Then you spread the mutated germs around, and now that antibiotic won't work for that germ anymore, for anybody.

Answer 2

Yes. If you don't completely finish the dose as prescribed, you chance creating antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Similarly, if you take antibiotics for a non-bacterial infection, you may be creating more antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

http://www.caringforkids.cps.ca/whensick/Antibiotics.htm
How effective are antibiotics against germs?
There are many different kinds of antibiotics used to kill bacteria and fight infection. But in recent years the antibiotic resistance of bacteria that cause infections in children has become a major problem. In other words, some medicines that used to kill certain germs don't work anymore. Consequently, many infections cannot be treated with traditional antibiotics and new (and often more expensive) drugs must be used.

Why have bacteria become resistant to antibiotics?
There are many reasons why bacteria develop a resistance to antibiotics, including inappropriate use of medicines. Antibiotics may kill some, but not all bacteria. And when antibiotics are used for the wrong reason or for an incorrect length of time, more bacteria resistant to that antibiotic may be produced. Say a child with a cold is infected with a virus, for which there is no effective antibiotic. But say antibiotics are incorrectly prescribed for the cold. Using these antibiotics does not cure the infection but can actually encourage antibiotic resistance among bacteria that live normally in that child's intestinal tract. Now if that child develops a bacterial infection, the bacteria may be resistant to the antibiotic that was used incorrectly to treat the cold.

How can parents help avoid possible antibiotic resistance
There are certain steps you can take to help you and your family avoid the possibility of antibiotic resistance:

* Try to ensure that your child only receives antibiotics when they are clearly indicated for the treatment of a bacterial infection. Children with colds should not be treated with antibiotics.
* Be sure that any antibiotic is administered properly at the prescribed dose and taken for the prescribed duration.
* Never use antibiotics prescribed for someone else.
* Never use antibiotics left over from an unfinished prescription.

Answer 3

Basically, yes. If you stop taking the antibiotics when you feel better, but before you have completed the course of medication, you may still be harbouring some of the bacteria in your system. These bacteria will, eventually, evolve to be resistant to the anitbiotics, so next time, the medication will be ineffective.

Worse, if the resistant strain of bacteria escapes from your system to the environment, other people may become infected with the "new" breed of bacteria.

Answer 4

You could be opening yourself up to a super-infection which will be resistant to the antibiotic you used incorrectly.

Answer 5

Yes. An infection that is treated by anitbiotics is caused by a species of bacteria which has many strains(kinds). You kill of fthe most suseptible strains first. It you quit taking the antibiotic early, you are leaving the more immune strains ,causing them to mutate into stronger strains which are more resistant to the antibiotic

Answer 6

How have you used them uh..."incorrectly"? Only then can I help you figure this out.

Answer 7

Your body could build up immunity to it. That's the problem with over using antiboitics - if you have built up immunity to it, it is ineffective.