As the infection-laden winter drags on, understanding the role that different medications play in treating various illnesses can help you find the right treatment
With early surges of flu, RSV, and other seasonal respiratory illnesses that are piling on recent increased COVID cases, it has been a rough winter already—not just because of all the coughs and fevers, but because it can be hard to find the medications commonly used to treat those symptoms. Themore than 100 current and recently resolved drug shortages, with others reported locally, including amoxicillin, Children’s Tylenol, and Tamiflu.
“Shortages are a time when we try and kind of triage these medications to the people who will benefit the most from taking them,” says, a pediatric infectious disease physician at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. The drug didn’t make any significant dent in symptom duration for kids. Nor did it reduce the risk of hospitalization or other complications, like pneumonia, bronchitis, or ear infections. But there were side effects, some serious. The drug increased the risk of nausea and vomiting by 4 percent in adults and 5 percent in kids.
Below emergency levels, Rajapakske recommends treating for comfort. She often sees toddlers in the clinic with 103 degrees fever who are running around and feeling great, and she doesn’t recommend medication in those cases. “Then you can see a child who has a lower fever but who is pretty miserable, who might not be eating and drinking much, who's waking up a lot at night, who's uncomfortable,” she says. “That's a very reasonable scenario to treat a fever in that child.
One reason the problem persists is that people mistakenly believe they need antibiotics for things like ear infections or ongoing coughs, even when viruses are likely to blame. “I can't tell you how many patients show up in the ER saying, ‘I’ve had this cough for two weeks. I know that I just need an antibiotic,’” Ranney says. “We know that if we don't prescribe it, they're going to go to someone else who will.
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