Apr
10
2010
Not taking all of the antibiotics prescribed for a sinus infection?
Posted by: Alan in Sinus Infection, tags: Antibiotics, Infection, prescribed, Sinus, TakingMy dentist prescribed me -more or less- 20ish pills around the end of last December for the sinus infection I had. I accidentally dropped one over the sink and it went down the drain, and I’m pretty sure it didn’t hurt me to miss one pill, but I just wanted to double-check. I seem completely over it and it was a long time ago, but I just thought of it today. Does anyone know anything about this?
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April 10th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Although you are supposed to take a full prescription of antibiotics, 1 pill is not going to make a difference.
April 10th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
Always take all of your medication….but one pill out of 20 will be ok!
April 10th, 2010 at 11:23 pm
If you take 4 of 5 pills properly, you’ve beat the odds and your doctor/dentist will be happy. And it worked in that case. Actually the courses of treatment of many infections are arbitrary and not well-studied. It’s known what works, so nobody does much research on whether it’s OK to get by with a day or two less. One such area that has been well-researched is cystits (urinary bladder infection), and there’s still no concensus on which length of treatment is best.
April 10th, 2010 at 11:58 pm
All antibiotics should be taken in it’s entirety at all times to kill all the bacteria, regardless of how you feel. Otherwise, the bacteria will become resistant to this medication. Next time the same bacteria might come back, and you will have no medicine to treat it. Also you could pass this on to others as well.
This is how, treatment resistant TB started appearing in the US.