why do antibiotics wear out?

Question

this is a very important question

Answer 1

Antibiotics don’t wear out, the darn bacterial develop and immunity to them.

An antibiotic is a substance (like bread mold for penicillin) that is a poison to some bacteria and not harmful to most people. The idea is to kill the bacteria without killing the patient. Bacteria strains breed quickly and they have a very simple structure, which makes it easy for them to mutate.

When a person takes an antibiotic then it kills most of the bacteria (it can’t do a thing for viruses though). However the bacteria breeds so fast and that it takes a while. What is an hour to you and me is like a few decades to bacteria. Entire generations are born and killed by the bacteria. With these fast generations natural selection has a chance to make things work and when the bacteria are put under the pressure created by an antibiotic then some of them start to develop partial immunity to the antibiotic.

Typically the antibiotic kills off enough of the bacteria that the body’s natural immunity system can take over and kill off the rest. But, as time has passed the bacteria has grown stronger, now days a lot of people carry some bacteria that is immune to an antibiotic in their bodies. They are able to keep it under control, so it doesn’t seem to affect them and when the bacteria can’t survive then it becomes dormant. However, that bacteria has gotten lose in hospitals. It isn’t the fault of the hospital, when someone bleeds that blood could contain some strains of this bacterial and it can spread bacterial spores through out the ER, then it can use the air handling system to spread throughout the hospital.

Lately, enough of these hardy strains have come together and intermixed so that some bacteria are immune to most antibiotics. These are the most dangerous ones and when they catch someone with a weakened immune system they populate massively becoming a real problem.

This is how the bacteria become so strong and resistant.

In the past doctors thought of antibiotics as wonder drugs, and when they first came out they were. They took diseases that could cripple entire armies and turned them into minor annoyances. When a person came in with a flu bug they started to demand a wonder drug cure. Since we all have some hostile bacteria in our bodies doctors thought that if they gave their patient antibiotics then the bodies immune system could concentrate on defeating the virus. This only accelerated the problem. Then some patients stopped taking the antibiotics early leaving a lot of it in their bodies. Their own immune system adapted and was able to over come the bacteria, but eventually the stronger strains that survived got out into t he wild and infected another person. At first this just made the antibiotics have to work harder, but as the hardy strains developed a stronger immunity they joined with other strains that had a partial immunity. When they got out in a germ rich environment like a hospital they got even stronger and interbreed.

Suddenly you have a strain that laughs at the current antibiotics and has its way with its victims. Thus the searches for new antibiotics, before our dwindling supply of effective ones are no longer useful.

One of the best ways to fight fire is with a backfire. Viruses have no common allegiance with bacteria or other viruses. Virus can infect bacteria, and scientists have used specially created strains of bacteria to let them attack bacterium. These retro viruses can deliver a targeted attack right to the core of the bacterium. However, our knowledge of these methods is limited and creating the retro viruses is a hit and miss method that takes a while. Meanwhile the bacteria are continuing to breed and get stronger. Once we develop a retro virus that can kill a strain of bacteria it just continues to breed and develop another immunity. Discover of the underwater volcanoes, called smokers, showed that life is very hardy. They have also been a source of new strains that might be turned into new antibiotics. Researchers have gone into the hot sulfur pools of Yellowstone looking for new strains of bacteria and viruses that could yield new medical cures. Most of our modern medical cures got their start just as penicillin did, with a piece of moldy bread. Nature is still better at making new medicines then man is.

The promise of these hot water bacteria and viruses is that they can’t survive for long in a human body so they have a much smaller chance of harming us. They also have a good chance of providing material and toxins that can adversely affect the hardy stains of bacteria that we have in the world today.

This is also why Europa, the ice covered moon of Jupiter, is so important. If we can find life there under the ice then who knows what medical wonders we could find.

Answer 2

The viruses in your body start to become immune to them and learn to adapt over the years so that the antibiotic cannot kill them... They become less effective the more you use them and doctors will have to find another, slighty varied antibiotic to help. It's best if you switch back and forth on antiboitics if you are sick a lot....

Answer 3

I don't understand it. Do they wear out? You mean if the prescription is way past the expiration date? You need to throw them out. You should never self-diagnose. You need to see a doctor and get the right medication for whatever it is you have.