Won’t antibiotics do less harm to our beneficial gut bacteria if it is injected directly into the body rather than go through our digestive tract?
In: 100
Not really, because if you inject something it goes into your blood, and blood goes everywhere. But giving antibiotics orally is very much less invasive than IV. if treatments are not invasive, then patients are more likely to take them.
Because injections need to be performed by medical professionals and that would require people to make a LOT of trips to hospitals or GP’s and it’d put a huge strain on those facilities.
Also, the more effort it takes to do something, the higher the odds people will quit doing it before it’s safe to quit.
Purely from a medical standpoint its a good idea.
But it’s not practical in the real world
The injection is more complicated, you need some training to do it correctly, and there is also the risk of infection.
Most antibiotics are taken at home by the one with the infection that likely has no medical training. Swallowing a pill is simpler. Injection yourself or having someone else do it is not simple, it requires training to do it in a safe way. The result is there are very few medical interventions that are done at home that require injection. If there is a requirement there is some training involved.
So injected antibiotics are used in a hospital setting if the oral variant is not appropriate. There you have trained people that can handle it.
Probably be a bit less convenient if the treatment lasts for 5-7 days or longer and having to get that person into a setting to make the injection daily, or twice daily. Doable but rather impractical for most people.
If there is a serious infection (like blood sepsis), then the patient will be hospitalized and IV antibiotics given.
injections are invasive, that is, they break through the body’s outer defense, so they’re high risk. (yeah, maybe it’s just a tiny little hole but it’s *deep*)
injections are higher risk when not done properly. [here are some NSFL pics](https://www.google.com/search?q=infected+injection+sites&newwindow=1&sxsrf=APq-WBt5vUBqFfEnVTuM0YA2ed-olrKJLg:1650377759643&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi8ge-gqKD3AhXmDkQIHX-EDwcQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1745&bih=886&dpr=1.1) of injections gone wrong
dirty needles etc
Because people aren’t going to give themselves shots and pay for all the needles, disposing them…
If you keep livestock, most antibiotics are injected. But it’s not like one injection and you’re done. It’s usually either IM injection 2x day for a week or subq injection every other day for a week. I have to assume that your answer lies in that fact. It is rare for doctors to prescribe medicines for home use that have to be administered by injection, especially when oral administration works just fine. I am not sure if that is more because patients are not comfortable administering injections or because thr medical industry as a whole does not trust patients to do it.
I will say that when you administer an antibiotic injection to an animal, it very clearly hurts like a motherfucker. I usually do it in the shoulder and the animal will cry and often stumble for a few steps when they try to walk. A lot of people are huge babies about injections anyway, can you imagine if you had to get several shots like that every time you get sick?
That is not how antibiotics work. Well, at least not how all of them do.
If you have a pneumonia (infection of the lungs) you will still get the antibiotics i.v. (intravenous) or p.o. (per os – oral) because the active substances go through the bloodstream to the bacteria.
If you have an infection of the gastrointestinal system you will most likely receive antibiotics p.o., and if you are lucky and your type of bacteria is susceptible to non-absorbable antibiotics than you will get one of those. For example C.Difficile can be treated with Vancomycin which does not get absorbed from your intestines and works only inside the gastrointestinal tract. This will help you not get problems with the bacteria in your skin and mucosa causing mycosis (infections with fungus).
To sum it up: it does not matter how you give the antibiotic (almost never, an exception I have mentioned), it will sadly almost every single time destroy the good bacteria reaching it through the bloodstream.
Side note: there are other options nowadays and we are trying to use local antibiotics. For pneumonia we can also do inhalative therapy. For urinary infections we have some antibiotics that get excreted in urin and for other types of incetions (skin, eyes, ears) we have drops or ointments.
There are plenty of injected antibiotics and they wreck your gut health just as bad as oral anti-biotics.
Antibiotic drugs need to be present in the body at specific levels in order to effectively manage the bacteria that are causing an infection. This level is called the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and is different for each antibiotic.
Regardless of how the drug is administered, an antibiotic will enter the bloodstream and be distributed throughout the body before being eliminated (mostly via the liver and kidneys). These processes, called pharmacokinetics, are also different for each antibiotic.
An infection is treated by ensuring that the right amount of antibiotic is present in the body for the right amount of time. Typically, repeat antibiotic doses are required every 8, 12 or 24 hours for 7 or more days. We know that many antibiotics are absorbed very well into the bloodstream from the gut and they are generally well-tolerated by patients when administered orally. Regardless of route of administration there will be an impact on the gut biome, however not all of the normal flora will be destroyed. Plus, we can utilise probiotics and prebiotics to support the biome!
Ultimately, it boils down to convenience of dosing and ease of administration for patients. Self-injection would require training, skill and correct storage of the drug to ensure effectiveness. Multiple injections would be required daily and injections are more invasive than taking a tablet. Antibiotics for injection typically come in larger volumes than would be required by a single patient for a single course of treatment, so it’s less cost-effective.
Latest Answers