A Personal Experience in Antibiotic Resistance

Today I went to Student Health with what I believed to be a sinus infection. The doctor on duty confirmed my hypothesis and proceeded to prescribe me amoxicillin, a derivative of penicillin. He said something along the lines of "it's usually a 7-10 day dosage but you are going to take it for 2 weeks." I didn't say anything at the time, but now that I think about it, why do I need to take the drug for and extra 3-7 days? There is no way the doctor could determine that an extended dosage was necessary in my case from just a basic examination. It seems to me that I would have been just fine if I took the normal ammount of amoxicillin for the normal period of time. Extending the term of medication, although probably easier for the kind people at student who have to deal with thousands of students (especially suring flu season), could lead to increased resistance of the bacteria currently infecting me to amoxicillin. If bacteria can survive the regular doseage period AND a few extra days of exposure to the antibiotics, the bacteria will surely be a very resistant strain. Hopefully there will be no long term consequences for me...

Evolution of Antibacterial Resistance

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/10/4/l_104_03.html

Around 50 years ago society thought that antibiotics were the final answer to healing the ill and stopping the spread of disease, but within the past few decades we find this answer to be fleeting.  Whenever someone uses antibiotics, a few germs survive and become resistant to the antibiotic.  This happens especially when the drugs are cut off prematurely.  Whenever antibiotics are used when are they are not needed or incorrectly, the resistant strains evolve and multiply creating stronger and more potent diseases.  This video shows an example of the evolution of antibacterial resistance in order to better illustrate the issue.