Previous someone explained to me that when you are sick with a bacterial infection, you take antibiotics and it helps your body fight the infection. Even though your symptoms are gone your body is still fighting, which is why people say you should still rest even if you feel better because you might get a relapse. Your body is still fighting the infection but it is not at the level that symptoms like a fever appear. If you stop taking antibiotics during this period and get a relapse, it would be because some of the bacteria that remain are those with some resistant to the antibiotics. These resistant bacteria multiply to the point where your immune system cannot fight it on its own but now neither can the antibiotics help. Finishing a course of antibiotics reduces the risk of a relapse because it makes it easier for your own immune system to finish the resistant ones off. I don't know how antibiotic resistance works or comes about so now I don't know which to believe.
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