When Enough Is Enough During Treatment With Medication

Medicine duration

When you hear the word ‘drug resistance’, the first thing that crosses the mind of most medical personnel is drug abuse and misuse. This is correct.

The theory to this claim is the reason why medical personnel make it very clear for patients to finish their course of treatment even when sign and symptoms have disappeared. However, the theory to back up this claim may have some discrepancies as new studies are showing. So at this stage when is enough enough? That question can be answered from many angles.

Read Also: The Effect Of Taking Drug During Fasting

Before I confuse anybody about this topic, my stand is very clear. Some drugs require the full course of therapy to achieve total cure like tuberculosis treatment. This is the case with other sicknesses when sign and symptoms disappear. Here is the catch.

The theory that drug abuse and misuse leads to resistance are many. However, here is a simplified version of it. It is believed that for sign and symptoms to develop, the amount of microorganism in the body is high. A drug therapy for the first few days will be able to kill and eradicate the weak microorganisms in the body. The more the drug is taken as at when the drug, the more the stronger ones will be susceptible to the drug. The more the drugs kill the weaker ones, the more the stronger ones will have less competition giving them more room to feed and multiply.

It is illustrated that the microorganisms may be in three categories. The weaker ones die first in the first few days of treatment. The middle ones follow this. The last set is the very resistant ones. When the very weak and the middle ones have been eradicated, there is the possibility that sign and symptoms will disappear. If the patient stops taking the prescribed drug during this period, the surviving microorganism will multiply and cause another infection. Since only the very resistant ones are now present, it becomes very difficult to kill them with the current drug except with a higher one. How true is this?

The truth is that we only need medicine for the shortest possible time to get microorganism infection under control. Some prescription target this range. In such a case, stopping medication abruptly will lead to a re bounced of the sickness. However, a lot of them are not like that as we shall see in the course of this discussion. Therefore, it is best to ask your pharmacist.

According to Professor Lyn Gilbert, an infectious disease physician, resistance is generally proportional to the total amount of antibiotic being used in a population. The more antibiotic is used in a community, the more the likelihood to develop resistance.

This is in line with the belief that drug abuse and misuse is the cause of resistance but not along the theory earlier discuss.

The meaning of what the professor is trying to say is that when a patient takes a drug according to the doctor’s regimen even after signs and symptoms have subsided, he risk developing resistance to the drug. It is like continuing the drug even when the infection has been resolved. This believed is not the case when the patients stop the dosage as sign and symptoms are resolved when the full course of therapy has not been completed.

Read Also: The Reason Why Drug Manufacturers Produce Bitter Tasting Drugs

Another issue is that antibiotics kill important microbes in the body. The more the antibiotic use during the course of therapy, the more it affects the important microbes in the body.

Therapy duration is one of the major understudied areas of infection when drug manufacturers do series of experiments on drugs. These studies were carried out with a very slim population.

The duration of treatment depends on type of infection, the degree, and response rate. The general rule is the shorter the course, the lower the risk of side effects or resistance. More experiments are needed to determine the shorts course that can be recommended without increasing the risk of relapse.

The bottom line is to stop when sign and symptoms stop. The explanation is that at such time, the body immune system will be able to handle the micro organism still remaining in the body. As for me, I buy this idea. However, it is not a matter of treating sign and symptoms as some will say. This is because there are some diseases that can cause a problem if such advice is adhered to.

However, there are some diseases that need the full course of therapy such as endocarditis, throat infection viz streptococcus aureus bacteria.

However, some few research will do in this regards to know when enough is enough.

Share On Social Media With Family And Friends To Show You Care!