[Fat Bear Science] Do you use medicines with these words when you catch a cold? Be careful! Long-term abuse will damage your body and may even make the medicine unusable.

The temperature is high in summer, and air conditioning is needed to keep you alive

But it can also lead to high incidence of colds.

Many adults and children showed up

Cold symptoms such as runny nose, sore throat, and cough.

To make the cold get better quickly,

Many people will take cold medicine or even antibiotics on their own to deal with it.

But Chen Wanyi, director of our hospital's pharmacy department, said,

Although the dangers of misusing antibiotics are well known,

But in real life, people consciously or unconsciously

Antibiotics are already being misused.

Experts of this issue

Chen Wanyi

Chen Wanyi: Master of Pharmacology, Chief Pharmacist. Currently the Director of the Pharmacy Department of Chongqing Cancer Hospital, Young Member of the Clinical Pharmacy Committee of Chongqing Medical Association, mainly engaged in hospital pharmacy management, clinical pharmacy, and Chinese medicine preparations.

Cold is a self-healing disease, you need to drink more water and rest more

From the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, common colds in summer can be divided into summer-heat colds, summer-heat colds, and wind-cold colds. But from the perspective of Western medicine, colds are only divided into those caused by viral infections or bacterial infections.

"Generally speaking, colds are self-healing diseases, because in most cases they are caused by viral infections. You just need to drink more water, rest more, and take vitamin C supplements, and you will recover in a week." Director Chen said, but now many people can't stand the uncomfortable symptoms of nasal congestion, runny nose, cough, headache, etc. brought by colds, so they rush to take medicine on their own. However, many people may use the wrong medicine. For example, some people directly use the cold medicine they already have at home, or directly take the medicine that the doctor prescribed for the last cold that they didn't finish.

"The causes and symptoms of each cold may be different. Taking medicine randomly may not only fail to cure the disease, but may also cause certain side effects," Director Chen reminded.

Director Chen suggested that cold patients, especially the elderly and children, should take medication under the guidance of a doctor. And they must read the instructions carefully when taking medication and use it with caution.

Antibiotics are only needed for bacterial colds

"To deal with colds, many people often use cold medicines and antibiotics together." Director Chen said that in fact, only fevers and coughs caused by bacterial infections need to be treated with antibiotics under the guidance of a doctor. For colds caused by viral infections, antibiotics are useless.

Director Chen pointed out that in daily life, people often call antibiotics "anti-inflammatory drugs", but inflammation is not the name of a specific disease, but a symptom of many diseases. Bacterial infection, viral infection, fungal infection, allergy, traumatic injury, etc. can all cause inflammation such as redness, swelling, heat, and pain in the human body. Antibiotics only treat sensitive bacteria such as bacteria, and have no anti-inflammatory effect on inflammation caused by viruses, fungi, allergies, traumatic injuries, etc.

"In other words, antibiotics can eliminate inflammation caused by bacterial infection, but they are completely useless for aseptic inflammation such as redness, swelling, heat and pain at the toe tips in gout patients," Director Chen reminded.

Long-term abuse of antibiotics may lead to drug resistance

"If antibiotics are abused for a long time, it can lead to drug-resistant bacteria." Director Chen said that bacteria are very smart. In the process of fighting with antibiotics, they have developed some ways to resist the attack of antibiotics. In medicine, we call such bacteria "resistant bacteria"; and once such resistant bacteria are produced, they can spread. This is why bacterial resistance is a global problem, and it is related to you even if you don't take antibiotics.

Therefore, the misuse of antibiotics may lead to antibiotic resistance, which may eventually lead to a situation where no drugs are available. The last part of the G20 summit communiqué last year mentioned that antibiotic resistance can seriously threaten public health, economic growth and global economic stability.

Blindly refusing to use antibiotics may delay the treatment of the disease

"Long-term abuse of antibiotics, such as fluoroquinolone antibiotics such as levofloxacin, may cause liver and kidney damage, peripheral neuropathy, central nervous system effects, aggravated myasthenia gravis, anaphylactic shock and other serious side effects." Director Chen said, therefore, special groups such as people with liver and kidney dysfunction, infants and young children, pregnant women, etc. must use the medicine under the guidance of a doctor, or pay special attention to the dosage and method of taking antibiotics.

In addition, although in daily life some people "seek medical treatment in a hurry and take medicine indiscriminately when they are sick", there is also a group of people who believe that all medicines are poisonous, not to mention that antibiotics have too many side effects, so they resolutely refuse to take antibiotics.

In this regard, Director Chen pointed out that although common colds caused by viral infections do not require medication, if the cold is in the middle stage, the viral infection is combined with bacterial infection, or the cold symptoms are more severe, such as persistent high fever, you should go to the hospital for a detailed diagnosis by the doctor and seek professional treatment. If you need to take cold medicine, take it, and if you need to use antibiotics for anti-inflammatory treatment, you must use them. Blindly refusing to use antibiotics will delay the disease.

Science knows more

One-trick guide to identifying antibiotics

1. Names containing "sulfa"

Sulfonamide antibiotics, used as prefixes, such as sulfadiazine, sulfamethoxazole, sulfamethoxazole, etc.

2. Names containing "mycin"

This word stem is used for various antibiotics, such as azithromycin, clindamycin, roxithromycin, erythromycin, etc.

3. Names with [西林]

Penicillin drugs. Such as amoxicillin, ampicillin, piperacillin, mezlocillin, etc.

4. Names containing "cephalosporin"

Cephalosporins, used as prefixes. For example, cefuroxime, cefdinir, ceftriaxone, cefoperazone, etc.

5. Names containing "Penan"

Carbapenem drugs, such as imipenem, meropenem, panipenem, etc.

6. Names containing "Cyclic"

Tetracycline drugs, such as tetracycline, oxytetracycline, demeclocycline, and metacycline.

7. Names containing "沙星"

Quinolone drugs. Such as norfloxacin, ofloxacin, levofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, etc.

Text/ Fat Bear

Picture/ Internet

Reviewer/ Chen Wanyi

Original article, no reproduction without authorization

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Chongqing Science and Technology Commission Science Popularization Funding Project