• Question: Can proper dosage help you or does it harm you?

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      Asked by muskan12 to Daniela ?, ☣ Danna, Jonny, Juan, Lindsay on 10 Jun 2016.
      • Photo: Jonathan Hunter

        Jonathan Hunter answered on 10 Jun 2016:

        Lots of research goes into finding the dose at which a drug will work most effectively. A dose that is two low may not do its job (or potentially allow antibiotic resistant species to survive). A dose which is two high may poison the person as well as bacteria, making them more poorly.

      • Photo: Lindsay Robinson

        Lindsay Robinson answered on 11 Jun 2016:

        As long as you’ve been prescribed the drug, the proper dosage will be the right dose and should do you good. It takes a lot of work from specialist scientists to work out what the correct dose of different drugs is.

      • Photo: Daniela Lobo

        Daniela Lobo answered on 16 Jun 2016:

        Proper dosage is key in most medicine: too much can harm you, too little can harm you.
        In the case of antibiotics is also very important that you finish the full course of the medication (as in, if the doctors tells you need to take it for 10 days, you really should take it for 10 days, even if you start feeling better after only 4 days). This is important because of what we’ve been talking about: antibiotic resistance. If you stop taking the antibiotic too soon, the bacteria that still exist in you (the strongest ones that didn’t die from the first couple of pills of antibiotics you took) will multiply and you might get sick again – but this time it could be worse, because these bacteria could now be resistant to that same antibiotic.

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