Quote Originally Posted by Omicron View Post
As far as keeping antibiotics in your trauma kit, don't they have a relatively short half life, and become much less effective as they age? As I recall, the full strength life is about 2 years on most antibiotics. This being the case, you'll want to figure out a way to rotate fresh supplies into your kit as they age.

Secondly, is it a good idea to only take 1-2 days course of antibiotics? My understanding is that you need to take 5-7 days worth once you start them, or your partially kill the infection and run the risk of making whatever survives resistant to that particular antibiotic.
Most will last much more than two years, an besides tetracycline most should be safe pretty much forever the potency just drops some. But when you are talking about preventing an infection the antibiotic often doesn't new to be as potent anyway. I'm not recommending it I'm just saying if you were in a life threatening situation and you had five or ten year old antibiotics they are still a good option.

5-7 day courses, or longer, are when you are treating an infection. That's dangerous because if you don't kill all the bacteria they may develop resistance to that antibiotic. For prevention one to two days or until you can get help is usually plenty. Ever had a dental procedure? They usually give amoxicillin 1000-2000 mg one time. It's a similar idea.