A lot of people have been told not to just take antibiotics without a medical prescription by an authentic medical practitioner but many don’t know the reason behind this. And when you ask them ‘why do you think you shouldn’t just use an antibiotic?’ The major reply you will get is ‘because my doctor (nurse or pharmacist) says so'.
Many people find themselves going for these antibiotics at the slightest sign of infection despite the fact that their medical practitioner asked them not to because they are not duly educated and informed on why self-administering antibiotics can be detrimental to their health.
Simply put, antibiotics are medicines used to eradicate bacteria infection from the body system. Note that bacteria infection is just a type of infection, others include: fungi infection, viral infection, etc. Antibiotics abuse is also antibiotics overuse or antibiotics misuse.
There are different ways people abuse the use of antibiotics without even knowing; the major one is the use of antibiotics without a prescription. Some people just go to the pharmacy to buy an antibiotic of their choice. Some go for it because that was the antibiotics the doctor prescribed for them at a previous time. For some people, It is their friend, who is not a medical practitioner, that advised them to get it because it worked for them when they used it.
Another way an antibiotic is abused is when patients refuse to follow the instructions of the medical practitioner on the usage. Some antibiotics are to be used every twelve hours while some are at six hours intervals. Most people do not follow these instructions, leading to antibiotic resistance i.e., the bacteria will become resistant to the antibiotics, which is the beginning of a big problem. There is a whole lot of difference between a viral infection and a bacterium infection. To some, an infection is an infection and anything goes. This is a deadly ignorance that should not be taken lightly.
In Ghana, you can’t get antibiotics without a written prescription from a medical practitioner, this is to show you how terrible antibiotics misuse is. In standard pharmacies here in Nigeria, when you ask for an antibiotic to be dispensed to you, the pharmacist through intelligent questions will try to ask why you think you need the antibiotics especially when it is not written on a prescription slip for you. But then, there are a lot of drug stores in Nigeria with no pharmacist or competent personnel to challenge your use of these medicines.
There are various consequences of antibiotics misuse, they include;
1. Leads to Bacteria Resistance: Our body system consists of harmless bacteria which help in the normal functioning of the body, for example, the normal flora in the gut is made up of bacteria that help in food digestion. Misuse of antibiotics such as not complying with instructions of a medical practitioner can lead to antibiotics resistance i.e., the antibiotics won’t have any effect on the infection in the future, that’s bad right? Yes. Now imagine developing that kind of attitude to all known antibiotics. That could be dangerous because it will be very difficult to get antibiotics to work on the individual.
2. Helpful Bacteria can Become Harmful: Bacteria have evolved defenses against antibiotics through the process of horizontal gene transfer. Bad bacteria can simply pass along their resistance gene to other forms of bacteria like students passing notes in a classroom, thereby teaching them to be bad, and not only will they be bad, the resistance ability passed to them will make them harmful to the antibiotics.
3. Inflation on Drug and Hospital Costs: The more antibiotics resistance spreads, the more often common antibiotics become useless. This means patients with the infection will require a longer and more expensive forms of therapy.
To put an end to this abuse, it starts with you. When you think you have an infection, speak with your doctor or pharmacist. Do not use an antibiotic again because your medical practitioner once prescribed it to you or a friend. Follow the instructions of the pharmacist on how to use the medicine and ensure you complete the dose.
Have you used antibiotics without a doctor's prescription before? Share your experience with us in the comment section.
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