this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2026
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As a joke it’s perfect 😂 but also: please don’t actually do this—finishing antibiotics as prescribed (or calling your doc if you’re having side effects) is the real pro tip.
Looks like we found the pharmacist.
Recent research has found that the recommended length of a course of antibiotics is basically just a guess and doesn't have any hard science backing it.
I've even seen research that suggests that not finishing the full course if you feel better helps prevent resistant bacteria from taking over (because the antibiotics are killing the bacteria that are outcompeting them).
See, the logic I heard re: resistance is the opposite. An infection is only an infection when the bacterial levels are high enough to cause symptoms. Anything below that is definitionally at a level where your body can at worst manage those bacteria without triggering symptoms. You can still be contagious, though.
So, when you don't finish your antibacterial regimen but instead stop when you feel better, you are maximizing the culture size of bacteria with some resistance, creating maximal chance for some resistant bacteria to spread. Finishing your regimen kills the most amount of bacteria; yes, the surviving ones at this point are the most resistant, but are at a small enough number that propagation and spread are far less probable.
There are studies linked in this post that disagree with that logic.
The logic you heard is the long held belief that's being challenged with new evidence, and it takes a super long time to break the medical community of long held beliefs.
For example, even in the 90s medical schools were still teaching that you couldn't get addicted to opioids if you were actually in pain.
And there are still psychiatrists that will say you can't have autism because you can make eye contact with people, because that's what the DSM5 says.
That may be true, but given that doctors are better equipped to understand the changing landscape of medical knowledge, it's wisest to take medication as prescribed