Most prophylactic agents and vitamins are prescribed to patients orally. This, as a rule, allows you to implement the course with minimal discomfort. After all, the patient simply uses powders, tablets or capsules, washing them down with a sufficient amount of liquid.
If you have prescribed a medicine to take orally, how is it?
Unfortunately, some patients do not understand medical terminology, and they are embarrassed to ask when prescribing treatment (or do not want to look stupid). Therefore, having received a prescription, they try to figure out what oral medication means. Well, if we are talking about pills (here, as a rule, everything is already clear). And if incomprehensible powders or liquids in ampoules are prescribed, you can get confused.
But everything is not so complicated. This method of treatment is perhaps the simplest of all available. And it means elementary ingestion, that is, the introduction into the body through the mouth. So taking the medicine orally is like simply swallowing food. Usually, when prescribing such treatment, the specialist also indicates the dosage, the number of doses per day and recommends treatment before, after or during meals.
Types of taking drugs
When are drugs prescribed orally? These are, as a rule, cases of a patient being at home (outpatient) treatment, as well as in a hospital, in cases where immediate administration of the medicine is not required, there are no contraindications to this method of use. In more difficult situations, when the patient is unconscious, there are certain digestive problems that impede the normal swallowing of drugs, they use another - enteral administration of medications (already using probes and other devices). Nutrient mixtures can be delivered directly to the stomach in the same way to patients who, for one reason or another, are deprived of the ability to swallow food on their own.
In the event that immediate administration of the drug is required, parenteral routes of administration are used (subcutaneous, intravenous or intramuscular). They are also used for drugs whose contact with the digestive tract is undesirable or contraindicated.
Advantages and disadvantages of oral medication
Undoubtedly, this is the simplest and least unpleasant way of introducing a substance into the body. Its main advantages are naturalness. A person eats food daily to get enough nutrients, water and other drinks to replenish fluid. Therefore, swallowing an additional few tablets or capsules will not be difficult for him. Powders and liquids are a little more complicated, but you can drink them too.
Of the shortcomings, it should be noted, firstly, the possible problems when using children's medicines. Babies are not always eager to take even fruit-based pleasant medicines, not to mention bitter pills or powders. Secondly, some drugs, when interacting with gastric juice, lose their properties, and some, on the contrary, can harm the digestive organs. Thirdly, in order for oral substances to enter the blood, it takes time, which sometimes simply does not exist in stock. It is for this reason that a specialist should prescribe the method of administering medications based on the current situation.