Hacker News Reader

Comment by antonkochubey | Hacker News Reader

Are you sure you have read the article, not just its title?

When an article has a misleading clickbait title, I think it's fair game to redirect the conversation to the subject of the title.

Yes, and the question lends itself to control (or lack of) by relevant medical "authorities".

I honestly do not trust somebody with a doctor license who I talked to for 7 minutes out of 259200 minutes (6 months).

For example, when I went on a camping trip, I got bit by 15 ticks. After I got back, went to doc for 15 day doxycyclene, gold standard. And its cheap, like $15. NOPE, fucker wanted the ticks in a bag to grind up and waste a $400 Lyme test. And that test is only 60% accurate, tons of false negatives.

If I could have, I would have bought doxy, scaled it to my weight, and did the 15 day run.

But nope. I ended up getting the second recommended, amoxicilian as "fish antibiotics".

One of the reasons doxycyclene is so effective is because it's less overprescribed. Antibiotic resistance is a real thing, and the day we run out of viable ones is going to be ugly. Having a gatekeeper isn't a bad idea.

To add to this, despite all efforts to educate people, many STILL don't know that antibiotics don't work against viruses and will want one when dealing with a cold or other viral infection.

If we let antibiotics be over-the-counter, every damn infectious bacteria will be a super-strain in a year.

Antibiotics are routinely given to all of their farm animals as part of their food, for prophylaxis. But allowing humans to buy when they're sick is somehow the super-strain-end-of-times??

Antibiotics stop bacteria. Antivirals stop viruses.

Except bacteria can be attacked whenever, the sooner the better.

Antivirals need a rapid and early timeframe to work. Getting a fucking doctor to say yes is almost always too long, and you missed your treatment window. That is unless you go the ER, and lucky to not get shoved aside. Then pay $$$$$

Those are two separate issues and we obviously should not be just giving feedstock and animals antibiotics constantly. That's no good for anyone.

Maybe the better solution is that the government should be paying for the Lyme test as a public health measure. Knowing which areas it is spreading too is extremely important.

And on the flip side I know someone whose father got Lyme but didn't know it for years - he was not very symptomatic at first and ended up with major nerve damage. Not one to mess around with

> Antibiotics are routinely given to all of their farm animals as part of their food, for prophylaxis.

That's also a problem [0]; and it's one that can't be solved by creating a second, somewhat related problem.

0: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11200672/

That's why I went amoxycillan. I can buy medical grade as "fish antibiotics".

Alpha-gal wasn't prevalent then. It was primarily Lyme and rocky mountain spotted fever. Doxy and amox is the gold/silver standard for both.

I don't need a fucking doctor to tell me I was bitten by 15 ticks. I removed them myself with a tick puller. I don't need to he told that I probably got a disease from at least 1 of them. So yeah, its either going to cure the infection before it starts up, or is a prophylactic to prevent it.

And in more sane countries, I can go in a pharmacy, tell the pharmacist and reasonablely and cheaply treat myself. US? Not so much.

But, I can smoke delta8, tobacco, and drink until my lungs and liver give out. But how dare I take some antibiotics when I need them.

You make a good argument for expanded use for true "OTC" meds (Over the Counter - as in can't be sold on the shelf in bulk but has to be given by an actual Pharmacist).

I generally agree, but it seems darkly comical to be worried about gatekeeping antibiotics as a tick disease prophylactic when the vast majority of antibiotics are applied non-therapeutically to farm animals.

So what you're saying (and I agree with) is that antibiotics aren't gate kept *enough*

Reply on news.ycombinator.com