Sorry about the delay. The answer is, t more often than not, that yes they do. It really depends upon the bug, but most of them remain sensitive to the common antibiotics. If you are on long term tetracycline for acne, it will knock out the gonorrhea or chlamydia you may have been exposed to. But please be aware that there are drug resistent bugs out there. Gonorrhea acquired in Thailand or Hawaii should not be treated with tetracycline. Syphilis remains very sensitive to ancient penicillin, but you need to take a lot for a long period of time. The antibiotic only works when the spirochete is making baby spirochetes, and it is a very slow grower. So a 5 day course of gorilla-cillin will not be sufficient to knock it out. As my general rule, I like to give the erythromycin like drugs for routine illnesses because at the proper dose, they do have the potential to knock out other little critters that might be lurking in warm and dark places.
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