Amoxcillin

[smurfchops]

Why is it that,if I start feeling better after a couple of days, I have to take the full course of tablets? Thanks all.

[Prudie]

Because even if you feel better there will be a tiny bit of bacteria still left in you and if you don't kill it off it will all come back and be resistant to the next dose of antibiotics - a very simplified reason.

[smurfchops]

Thanks Prudie, makes sense.

[Sqad]

That is a good question smurfy to which there is no answer.
After years, decades even, there is evidence to suggest, that after feeling well, the job of the antibiotic is done .
You can only kill the germ once ;-)
Do as your Dr instructs.

[barry1010]

I wonder if you starts to feel better after a couple of days simply because you expect to, you've started treatment, you know you're getting better. You've been told you're ill and you've looked after yourself, rested properly, plenty fluids etc.
In reality, though, it's just your attitude that has changed, the rest has helped and you're still not properly better.

[ichkeria]

The last time I took penicillin for an infection, I completed the course and was apparently cured.
However, a day or so later the symptoms returned. Luckily there must have been enough penicillin in my system to fight it off again.
So just a warning that you do need to see it through.

[jacpinetree17]

Yes smurfchops please finish the course even though u feel ok. Better safe than sorry. I never finished mine and it taught me a lesson. Hope you are better soon. JPT x

[Tilly2]

Funnily enough, when I have a course of antibiotics, I always start to feel better after the fist dose but I am a good girl and make sure that I take them all.

[Peter Pedant]

the reason given in medical schools hemhem
is that after a day or so, all the claggy bits that make you feel ick have gone
( no feel ick now yeah)
but bacteria are alive still somewhere
and that by stopping antibiotics, you are favouring their return BUT with a raised ability to withstand ABics

modified from Dulbecco and Dubois ( dont ask)

I usually do 5 days as the diarrhoea gets so bad ( = rips my bum apart)