Has it become a standard procedure nowadays that when you take kids to hospital, they must be given antibiotics?

My concern is one; most of the antibiotics prescribed are first line drugs. What will happen if the bacteria develops resistance to them?

While I do agree that antibiotics resistant has become a common nightmare nowadays,everyone takes a blame not only the medical professionals.

When you get that antibiotic regimen,many people do not complete the dosage and by this you give the bacterias more energy to fight and they evolve/mutate and may form a calcium layer which is very hard to penetrate by drugs eg the MDR or XDR cases in mycobacterium tuberclosis.
Also,patients have become a know it all people,I have seen on many occassions where the patient telling the doctor to give an antibiotic even when cases that do not require .eg 70% of homa/flu is viral and do not require antibiotics but everytime the patient go to the hospital,they request antibiotics.With some doctors especially in govt hospitals and some high cost hospitals eg Getrude,Nairobi,Agakhan,the GPs will give you what you want and leave but not spcialists

I can't agree more on the malpractices of this hospitals that we trust, on Tuesday my girlfriend went to aga khan Kisumu with backache and a headache, her blood sample was drawn and sent to the lab, a mammogram was conducted on her and some medication prescribed, when she came home, the prescription was reading eso kit(H pylori kit) and paracetamol. She didn't buy the drugs coz I had given her 2500, tell me had she had enough money for the drugs, the hospital visit would have cost her Ksh4600 and a wrong diagnosis, as much as I am not a doctor I think you test for the bacteria from a stool sample.

Worse still this is the only big hospital or rather preferred in Nyanza and Western, how many people have been misdiagnosed? again from my colleagues, I don't know if to them there is an H pylori epidemic but rarely do they miss the kit in their prescriptions.

Sorry for late reply.
I wish you cud have named the antibiotic in question but nevertheless,most antibiotics when taken orally have absorption onset of from 20 minutes from the GIT and reach plasma levels with varying degrees thats why they are those taken twice daily,thrice,four times etc.

It would be wrong for me to give a blanket answer since you did not name the exact antibiotic or details such as frequency of administration.

But my advice is do not give another if 3o minutes had elapsed.

@ Ocampo first tell us what the Rome statute says about antibiotics

I thinks its become a commercial business for these hospitals on medications some of them which don’t even work, so you have to go back 3-5 times before they finally give you ‘correct’ dawa…ABK

My daughter was teething & 1st thing Getrudes in lavington wanted to give was put drips even before any diagnose (there was no any sign of dehydration) I said NO, they take some test kwanza or try the ORS solution. Actually I don’t even know what I was doing there cos I ended up telling the old DOC what to do & I went home with antibiotics & paracetamol…
People are more informed nowadays and can’t rely on the doc…is it due to watching too much Greys Anatomy & Dr. House?

They are even unable to treat my pal who has post-herpes (non- genital) itch for the last 2 months…any doc in the house?

Good topic. what are the long term effects of prolonged use of antibiotics?

.....did you mean ulcers???

@mlefu... In reflection, I first got the symptoms almost 4 years ago and tested positive but did 2 years before the symptoms started getting worse. The early symptoms involve feeling some very dull polite pain midway between the chest and navel. It always got worse around lunch hour before feeding. Felt like burning tho not in a painful way. Just hot inside. Any time my stomach was empty I would feel gas forming and a bloated feeling. The wind passed around that time was plain pungent. Strangely, I would feel ok after feeding. Zero noise in my stomach! Till hunger set in again. Would even feel some nausea. I think the symptoms vary with people.
My suggestion. If you get those stomach issues persistently and you have been under amoebiasis and typhoid antibiotics without longlasting relief then it might be wise to take the test. To eliminate the possibility of typhoid take a test called salmonella antigen test instead of widal or do a stool culture which would also detect dysentry (shigella) apart from typhoid (salmonella).
Stress or eating spicy food may not cause ulcers. But they will agrevate the symptoms. Smoking, pinting and caffeine don't go well with ulcers. Persistent dark or blackish stool may be a pointer to bleeding in the gastro intestinal system. A doc may request for an occult stool test to check for the presence of blood which is not visible to the naked eye. Then take it from there. As a shocker... Persistent and longterm use of asprin and ibuprofen have also been implicated in causing ulcers. Now. Did I read somewhere that untreated gastric and peptic ulcers may lead to stomach cancer? Food for thought.

@burning spear, thanks for that. Maybe we should start a 'dear doctor' column where we wananchi put in all our medical queries for pple in the medical field like you. My daughter was on an antibiotic syrup called zinnat. She kept the drug down for half an hour then vomitted. I repeated the dose since the vomit showed traces of the medicine