09/15/2025
What if your antibiotic doesn’t work?
With school back in and the colder weather coming, there will be more people staying indoors and in close contact with each other.
This is when and where viral illnesses, like the common cold, thrive.
Picture this: a simple paper cut lands you in the ICU, or routine surgery feels as risky as skydiving without a parachute.
Sounds over the top?
Sadly, the World Health Organization warns this could be our future if we don’t act on antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
Doctors see cases of antibiotic resistance regularly now.
Antibiotic, or antimicrobial resistance (AMR), happens when bacteria evolve into drug-resistant ninjas.
The antibiotics that used to take them down? They just shrug them off.
💊 In 2024, millions of antibiotic prescriptions were written, and a large chunk of them weren’t even necessary.
Around 70 percent of antibiotics worldwide are used in livestock, not people.
That means your burger has probably been exposed to more antibiotics than you have this year.
For example, dairy cows receive so many antibiotics that we can identify them in the milk that we produce, and then identify these same antibiotics in the blood of humans that drink that milk.
Here’s what antibiotics can’t do:
• They don’t work for colds, the flu, most sore throats, or any viral infection.
• Taking them “just in case” is like spraying bug repellent on your sandwich. Not helpful, possibly harmful.
If resistance keeps rising, infections that are currently manageable could become life-threatening again.
Everyday medical care like joint replacements, C-sections, and chemotherapy would carry serious infection risks.
What you can do:
- Only take antibiotics if they’re prescribed by a healthcare professional.
- Ask your doctor if you truly need them.
- Finish the full course if you start one.
- Don’t share or reuse leftovers.
- Wash your hands, stay up to date on vaccines, and handle food safely.
- Support farms that raise animals without routine antibiotics.
- Reduce consumption of animal based products, especially red meat.
Antibiotics are one of the greatest achievements of modern medicine.
Let’s not waste them on the bacterial equivalent of a mosquito bite.
Use them wisely so they keep working when we really need them.
If you found this helpful, please share it.
The more people know, the better chance we have of slowing this sequel down, or better yet, cancelling it altogether.
Have you ever taken an antibiotic “just in case”?
Have you ever considered that while antibiotics save lives, they can also give life-threatening complications such as allergic reactions, Clostridium Colitis and gut microbiome disruption.
Take them only if you really need them.
💚 Dr. Jules
