When antibiotics were first discovered they created a virtual revolution in the treatment of most infections. Over the past few years, hundreds of different types of antibiotics have been developed and successfully used to save the lives of millions of people.
During the past two decades, medical professionals have been dealing with several serious consequences of wide spread over- prescription of the antibiotics. One of them is bacterial mutation and emerging of resistant strains, so called superbugs. The other one is increasing number of allergic reactions to most common antibiotics.
Those two main concerns raise an important question:
When is it warranted to use antibiotics and when we should let our body fight the infection on it’s own?
In dentistry, we used to prescribe antibiotics routinely for dental procedures to people with congenital heart condition such as MVP ( mitral valve prolapse ), or a simple heart murmur. People who had artificial joints also had to take antibiotics before dental visits to prevent infection.
Neither of those conditions requires antibiotics today.
Generally in dentistry, antibiotics should be used extremely judiciously and reserved for serious life- threatening infections. Taking antibiotics preventive, “just in case” without clinical justification, must be discouraged.
Only if all practitioners and patients become vigilant about over-use of the antibiotics, the world has a chance to avoid the crisis.
Michael Paltsev D.D.S.
