During the season change, babies often have some minor conditions: colds, fevers, coughs, and red and swollen throats. Mothers almost immediately judge that their children have inflammation. They should give their children [anti-inflammatory drugs] and quickly eliminate the inflammation.
But is this really desirable?
Inflammation is what? Do you need it? Are anti-inflammatory drugs and antibiotics one drug?
Today, we specially invited Kong Lingkai, the attending pediatrician and master of pediatrics, to answer the baby’s [anti-inflammatory] questions.
First, what is inflammation?
Inflammation is a good thing, without which human beings cannot live well.
You may think, come on, after my throat is inflamed, it hurts so much that I feel uncomfortable eating. Catch up with the fever, the fever made me have no strength at all, how is it good for me?
That’s because inflammation is a reaction that eliminates the injury factors and repairs itself after the human body is injured.
Although you don’t feel well, I don’t want you to feel. I want the feeling of safety of the whole body after the inflammatory part is healed.
Speaking of which, do you feel a little clear about what? Although the baby has a sore throat and is not feeling well all over his body, isn’t it better to feel uncomfortable for a few days in the end? The price of good is the discomfort of these days.
Why do you feel uncomfortable for a few days? Because the inflamed part is red, swollen and painful, because the body will heat up. This involves the pathology of inflammation.
Why is the inflamed part red?
Because when the body is damaged, such as the throat is infected by bacteria, the body will transport a large number of white blood cells in order to eliminate the bacteria, so the blood vessels will expand and the blood flow will accelerate, so the inflammatory part will naturally turn red.
Then why is it swollen?
Because in order to make it easier for white blood cells and the like to come out of blood vessels, Into the inflammatory site, The permeability of the blood vessels increased, It can be understood that the gap between the cells that make up the blood vessels has increased. At this time, not only white blood cells can come out, but also the liquid in the blood vessels can seep out to the inflamed part, which will swell up. This is not without benefits. More liquid can dilute the toxins in the inflamed part, and can bring nutrition to the white blood cells that attack bacteria, etc.
Swelling and body secretion of various inflammatory media, also can make you feel pain, this is not bad, when you eat, will choose to eat some soft, water big, will not always stimulate the throat, let the throat recover quickly. Pain is to tell you, to take good care of the body.
At the same time, various inflammatory mediators may also make the body hot, so bacteria are uncomfortable in this overheated body environment, so they will not multiply in large quantities, and it is easier for white blood cells to remove them.
Of course, inflammation can not only eliminate pathogens, but also repair damaged bodies through [repair effect]. It can not only repair familiar pathogenic infection, but also repair injuries, such as skin cuts and bruises.
So, you know, inflammation is a good thing.
Second, is inflammation harmless?
Of course, junior high school politics teaches us that everything has two sides.
As mentioned above, the most common disadvantage of inflammation is that it makes you feel uncomfortable, painful and feverish.
In addition, there will be exudation problems in inflammation. If exudation is more and exudates in the pleural cavity, there will be pleural effusion, forming pericardial effusion at the heart, and these conditions will sometimes aggravate the disease. Severe laryngitis, epiglottitis, if the laryngeal edema is severe, blocking the airway, it will also lead to asphyxia death.
There is also some inflammation that the body is looking for trouble and has no damage, but the immune system will attack healthy cells and tissues in the body, such as autoimmune diseases, such as systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis.
Therefore, although inflammation is good, it cannot be overdone.
Three, do you want to diminish inflammation? What about colds and sore throats?
Anti-inflammation means eliminating inflammation, or reducing or eliminating over-reaction inflammation. After reading the above content, we basically have our own judgment on whether to diminish inflammation or not.
If inflammation does more harm than good to the body, it should be eliminated-such as systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid disease, etc., and anti-inflammatory treatment such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or hormones is required.
However, if inflammation is far more beneficial than harmful to human body, it must not diminish inflammation-for example, if your hand is scratched, it must be repaired by inflammatory reaction. Why do you want to diminish inflammation?
Do you need anti-inflammation when you catch a cold or your throat is red and swollen?
No, we should not interrupt the inflammatory process of the body at this time, because the body is repairing itself.
But if you feel uncomfortable, we can relieve the symptoms and make you comfortable instead of diminishing inflammation. For example, if your throat hurts, just give your child something cold (ice cream) to make your child feel no pain. For adults, if your throat hurts badly, you can also spray some local anesthetic to relieve the pain.
If the child suffers severe pain, the doctor will prescribe ibuprofen, Tylenol and other drugs, which can relieve the pain.
Four, what is an anti-inflammatory drug? Is it the same as antibiotics?
Anti-inflammatory drugs can be called anti-inflammatory agents/drugs, which means a drug that can reduce inflammation in the body, including glucocorticoids and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
Glucocorticoids, which are familiar with dexamethasone, hydrocortisone and methylprednisolone, have the strongest anti-inflammatory effect.
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) can be understood as non-glucocorticoid anti-inflammatory drugs, which are familiar with ibuprofen, aspirin and the like. Tylenol belongs to this category in China, but it belongs to a single category abroad and does not belong here.
It is obvious from here that [anti-inflammatory drugs] and [antibiotics] are completely different kinds of drugs.
Then why do people call antibiotics anti-inflammatory drugs?
Because I didn’t understand it before, I felt that I had used antibiotics, and I didn’t have a fever or pain in a few days. I eliminated the [inflammation] in my body and called anti-inflammatory drugs. The effect of antibiotics is mainly to eliminate bacteria and destroy the root of infection in the human body, so inflammation will slowly decrease and can be counted as an indirect anti-inflammatory drug.
However, antibiotics are drugs that need prescriptions to be used. They are mainly used to inhibit or kill various microorganisms, such as bacteria, fungi, atypical pathogenic bacteria, etc., so as to control or eliminate infection. In other words, they are suitable for use only in case of infection.
However, not all inflammation is caused by infection, such as rheumatoid arthritis and allergic rhinitis. If antibiotics are used incorrectly under these circumstances, it will not only cause certain economic losses, but also cause abuse of antibiotics.
More importantly: ten million! No! Abuse! Antibiotics! ! !
The organs of drug metabolism in children are not yet fully developed, which may cause injuries because it is difficult to complete the task of metabolizing antibiotics.
Antibiotics, while controlling and eliminating bacteria, may also induce bacteria to develop drug resistance. These bacteria that have developed drug resistance may be transmitted to others through various channels, making treatment difficult. What is more terrible is that at the same time as forming bacterial drug resistance, it may also produce superbacteria.
If we really need antibiotics one day, we will probably face the embarrassing situation of no drugs available.
In addition, antibiotics also have a great stimulating effect on intestinal flora, such as antibiotic-related diarrhea and other problems.
So, when anti-inflammatory drugs are needed, how can we distinguish that this drug is not an anti-inflammatory drug but an antibiotic?
Five, anti-inflammatory drugs? Antibiotics? How should we distinguish?
The names of antibiotics are quite regular. Later, I saw that there were 8 kinds of characters in the names of the drugs. Basically, the antibiotics did not run away:
[Mycin]: such as penicillin, erythromycin, azithromycin, etc.
[Cillin]: such as amoxicillin, methicillin, etc.
[Cephalosporins]: such as cefuroxime, ceftriaxone, ceftazidime, etc.
[Floxacin]: such as moxifloxacin, levofloxacin, etc.
[Nidazole]: such as metronidazole, ornidazole, etc.;
[Sulfanilamide]: such as sulfadiazine, sulfamethoxazole, sulfamethoxazole, etc.;
[Cycline]: such as tetracycline, demetacycline, metacycline, etc.
[Penem]: such as imipenem, meropenem, panipenem, etc.
Too much to remember?
It doesn’t matter, there is a simpler way-look directly at the instructions.
If the instructions say [suitable for infection caused by X X bacteria], it is antibiotics.