I have a cold, take what medicine?
Take some cold medicine and amoxicillin quickly to diminish inflammation.
In our country, this kind of dialogue can be said to be quite common. Everyone is accustomed to [anti-inflammation], amoxicillin has almost become the standard of small medicine boxes for families.
Who knows? This is called [abuse of antibiotics].
If you eat amoxicillin indiscriminately, you can’t cure a cold, but you have a share of the credit for damaging your health.
All this is caused by people taking [antibiotics] as [anti-inflammatory drugs].
Anti-inflammatory drugs? Antibiotics? I can’t tell the difference between silly and silly.
Speaking of the harm of abuse of antibiotics, many people may have heard of it, but few people realize that amoxicillin is an antibiotic and cannot be eaten indiscriminately.
In all the professional medical books I have read, there is no place where antibiotics such as amoxicillin are called [anti-inflammatory drugs], and the correct name is [antibacterial drugs].
The English word explaining the pharmacological effects of antibiotics is [anti-infection], which translates into Chinese as [anti-infection effect], not [anti-inflammatory effect].
Which common drugs belong to [antibiotics]? Reading the instructions is definitely the most accurate method, but there is also a simple identification technique:
The common drug names include [mycin] [mycin] [floxacin], mostly antibiotics (a few are chemotherapy drugs).
Of course, amoxicillin is no exception in such names as [cillin], such as amoxicillin, ampicillin, benzacillin, carbenicillin, etc., all belong to classic [penicillin] antibiotics.
This kind of drug is only effective for specific infections caused by antibiotic sensitive bacteria such as bacteria or mycoplasma. After the infection caused by sensitive bacteria is controlled by antibiotics, the inflammation caused by infection of these sensitive bacteria will naturally disappear.
You may ask, isn’t this still [anti-inflammatory]?
However, you should also understand that inflammation is not the name of a specific disease, but the common manifestation of many diseases. Bacterial infection, virus infection, fungal infection, allergy, trauma, etc. can cause the human body to show redness, swelling, heat, pain and other manifestations, which can be simply understood as inflammation.
Antibiotics can only fight some bacteria and cannot do anything about inflammation caused by viruses, fungi, allergies, trauma, etc. In other words, if the body’s inflammation is not caused by bacteria sensitive to antibiotics, antibiotics cannot have anti-inflammatory effect.
Even the so-called [anti-inflammatory effect] is obtained after antibiotics fight sensitive bacteria and win. Antibiotics do not directly fight inflammation.
What is the real anti-inflammatory drug?
In medicine, the following two types of drugs are usually called anti-inflammatory drugs:
- One is hormones that we often say, such as cortisone, hydrocortisone, dexamethasone, etc. The other is anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs, such as ibuprofen and aspirin.
They all directly fight against inflammation, that is to say, they can directly relieve your red, swollen, hot, painful and other manifestations.
The term hormone may be familiar to everyone. For people with normal immune function, cortisone hormones are secreted by the body itself. Therefore, throat inflammation caused by diseases such as colds will heal itself even if no medicine is used and a good rest for a few days, because the body will produce [anti-inflammatory drugs].
This is also why people ridicule [it is good to take medicine for a week for a cold, but it is good not to take medicine for seven days]. If you take medicine or not, the course of a cold is actually the same.
For people with abnormal immune system, anti-inflammatory drugs are sometimes selected in order to control inflammatory symptoms, but different anti-inflammatory drugs are also selected according to different inflammatory parts. For example, allergic rhinitis, hormone nasal spray is often selected. Arthritis, on the other hand, will choose analgesic ibuprofen and other oral drugs.
Follow the doctor’s advice to take medicine.
It is our duty not to abuse antibiotics
The most serious consequence of antibiotic abuse is the production of [superbacteria], which have no drugs available in the face of infection.
What is [superbug]?
Visually speaking, some bacteria have acquired shields against one or more antibiotics and become invulnerable. Its corresponding medical word is [multidrug resistant bacteria].
This kind of bacteria already exists, but ordinary people have not experienced it personally. For example, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) belongs to this kind of [superbacteria], and its emergence is accompanied by the widespread use of penicillin.
We all know that penicillin was first put into clinical use in the early 1940s. It is called the greatest discovery in the history of human medicine and has saved countless lives.
But 20 years later, in 1961, a penicillin-resistant superbacterium, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), appeared in Britain.
At present, it has become one of the important pathogens of hospital infection in various countries, and hospitalized patients, especially those in intensive care units, are deeply affected by it.
Perhaps you will say, I am in good health and I am not hospitalized. But things are changeable, who can guarantee that there will be no accidents?
Just a few days ago, We have a patient who used to be in very good health. He is a tourist enthusiast. Climbing up the Great Wall at 4: 00 a.m. to watch the sunrise, he accidentally rolled down and fell seriously. Antibiotics were needed to prevent infection for major surgery. Imagine, if he contracted superbacteria during hospitalization, the surgery would not be possible and his life might be lost.
If the current situation of antibiotic abuse cannot be completely changed, it is possible that super drug-resistant bacteria will not only proliferate in hospitals in the future. Once super bacteria appear on a large scale in the daily environment, anyone may become a victim.
What is more important is that superbugs are not restricted by region. With the movement of people, people in every corner of the world may be affected, and then mankind will face a disaster no less than that of a big earthquake or tsunami. However, a big earthquake or tsunami is a natural disaster, we cannot do too much, while the spread of superbacteria is a man-made disaster, and we can find ways to avoid it.
Therefore, it is our responsibility not to abuse antibiotics.
Reasonable use of antibiotics is also the obligation of doctors.
The doctor’s sentence [inflammation] is not a diagnosis of the disease, but a description of a symptom. A statement indicating the specific cause of the disease and the damaged part is a clear diagnosis.
Statements such as [bacterial pneumonia] make it clear that the cause is [bacterial] and give that the damaged part is [lung], not other parts.
In addition to diagnosis, we can also do more detailed, through biochemical tests to find out which kind of bacteria are infected, according to the situation of bacteria to choose different antibiotics. For example, streptococcus infection, the corresponding choice may be penicillin, while mycoplasma infection, the corresponding choice may be erythromycin, etc.
Different infection sites also correspond to different antibiotic choices, Infections occur in the lungs, or in the brain, The corresponding choice of antibiotics will also be different, and the function characteristics of specific antibiotics in different tissues and organs need to be considered. For example, some antibiotics can penetrate the blood-brain barrier and enrich in the infection site in the brain to achieve therapeutic effect, while some antibiotics are completely blocked by the blood-brain barrier and cannot do anything about brain infection.
To sum up briefly, antibiotics are used to treat sensitive bacterial infections. Different antibiotics are used to treat different sensitive bacterial infections. Different antibiotics need to be selected for different infection sites, and corresponding adjustments should be made according to the physical conditions of different patients.
Seeing this, I believe you also understand what many people often mention [how to distinguish between virus and bacterial infection? [Which antibiotic should I take? ] and other questions cannot be answered at once, nor can a simple popular science article explain clearly, because it requires complicated and varied medical knowledge as the basis, but also requires scientific and meticulous diagnosis and treatment process.
We ordinary people can’t do this job, let’s leave it to a professional doctor.
Since doctors shoulder such an important mission, they have the responsibility and obligation to do [not prescribe antibiotics when they are not needed] [explain the principle clearly when antibiotics must be prescribed], instead of simply misleading the public with one sentence [this is an anti-inflammatory drug].
In order to correct [abuse of antibiotics] from the source, we should start with correcting the name of antibiotics. We hereby call on all people:
Please stop calling antibiotics anti-inflammatory drugs!
The article was reprinted by Clove Garden authorized by the author.