Describe your personal philosophy about how and when you have taken, or would take, antibiotics. What experiences or prior knowledge do you have that shaped that personal philosophy?
Before coming to college, I would take antibiotics whenever they were recommended or prescribed by the doctor. Growing up, I would get strep throat all of the time and so I ingested a lot of antibiotics growing up. I remember once in a while if I had a sore throat and my strep test came back negative, they would still prescribe me antibiotics just in case.
Fast forward to my first year of college… I had pretty severe acne and so I went to see a dermatologist. The first thing she recommended was getting me on an antibiotic. Trusting my doctor, I agreed to take it. I was on it for 2 years without seeing results. After taking a few science classes I quit taking the antibiotics since I wasn’t seeing results anyway. To this day, I’m surprised at how long she wanted me to take them– I definitely don’t think that was healthy. Fast forward to this year (my last year of college) and I went in to the doctor for what I thought was extreme allergies. He said he thought it was a sinus infection and gave me an antibiotic. Due to my misery, I took it. It did not help unfortunately, and the antibiotics gave me terrible side effects.
I’m a lot more conscientious now about what I put into my body regarding medication (especially antibiotics) due to the rising awareness of antibiotic resistance due to gene sharing and selection. While researching for the discussion post this week I found on the CDC that 30% of antibiotics prescribed are actually unnecessary, and this was definitely an “AHA” moment that I’ll keep with me for future reference (https://www.cdc.gov/features/antibioticuse/index.html).
