Helping your pet stay healthy and recover from illness – ten top tips
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Thinking about antibiotics – right drug for the right bug Antibiotics are very useful drugs, but they have to be used carefully. We should all be trying to beat the bugs becoming resistant to antibiotics.
Helping your pet stay healthy and recover from illness – ten top tips
08
Thinking about antibiotics – right drug for the right bug 1.
If antibiotics are used unnecessarily, the bugs will become resistant to antibiotics and these superbugs could seriously affect pets and people. There are lots of sites that can give you more detailed information about this , such as http://www. thebellamossfoundation.com/?s=mrsa and http://www. noah.co.uk/?s=antibiotics
2.
Your vet needs to make sure that your pet has a bacterial infection. This is done through using specific clinical signs and if necessary doing lab tests on identifying the bacteria and checking what antibiotics will work.
3. Many vets may not use antibiotics routinely after low- risk surgery, such as small lump removal. 4. Some conditions need antibiotics that are applied directly to the problem, such as a cream that contains the medicine that you put directly onto your pet’s skin. 5.
The dose has to be at the correct level and given for the appropriate length of time. That’s where owners come in. If an owner doesn’t make sure their pet gets medicines as instructed that can lead to the development of resistant bacteria.
6.
Some of the antibiotics used will be older type antibiotics, such as penicillins – called ‘first tier’. This is because they can be as effective as the more modern drugs. The newer drugs can be more prone to becoming resistant and are often only used where the vet thinks that the first tier medicines won’t work. Have a look at sites like http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/ Antibiotics-penicillins/Pages/Introduction.aspx for more information
7.
Think about the difference between bacteria and viruses, which affects what medicine your vet will choose. For example, viruses multiply within living cells but bacteria don’t need this. They can reproduce on work surfaces, rocks, plastic and other non-living surfaces. This is one of the main differences between them.
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Bacteria can divide and go on to produce millions of bacteria from the one but viruses cannot reproduce without the help of something that’s living, such as your pet
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Bacteria can lie asleep for years and infect a pet or a person when they come into contact with them. That’s particularly important when you use old bits of cloth or an unwashed dish. Sites like http://www.nhs.uk/ chq/Pages/how-long-do-bacteria-and-viruses-live outside-the-body.aspx, http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/ can-clothes-and-towels-spread-germs.aspx, http:// www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/12/27/how-long-can- germs-live_n_4509419.html can give you more information about this
10. Remember that some of your illnesses can affect your pet and vice versa. Talk to your vet if you have
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