Hey my followers 🙋
I decided to start writing about my biggest passion and that is #Pharmacology. You have definitely experienced the situation in the pharmacy that pharmacist told you not to take the antibiotics with milk or you should take some tablets with or without food. Have you ever wondered why it is that? If not, I will try to explain you these facts in the simplest way. I will also highlight some medicines that may not be used by young children or pregnant women and explain it.
Source: Wikimedia commons
But at first I would like to describe some technical terms I will often use. You may have been familiar with some expressions already and some of them you may hear for the first time.
Pharmacology studies the effects, metabolism and use of chemical substances in the treatment of diseases. What is important for you to know is that Pharmacology is based on two concepts: Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics.
Pharmacokinetics studies "ADME":
A: absorbtion (How will it get in?)
D: distribution (Where will it go?)
M: metabolism (How is it broken down?)
E: excretion (How does it leave?)
In the simple way, Pharmacokinetics can be characterized as a movement of drugs within the body.
And Pharmacodynamics deals with mechanisms of action, side effects of drug, contraindications, drug interactions etc.
I will focus especially on contraindications and drug interactions so I would like to explain you what do these expressions mean.
Contraindication ❢
- is the opposite of indication (simple 😁) The most typical contraindications are pregnant women and children. So if someone tells you that for example Aspirin is contraindicated in pregnancy, it means that this drug can cause seriously side effects on bodies of pregnant women. So you can not give this medicine to pregnant women. Never!
Some medicine you should avoid when you're pregnant: aspirin, isotretinoin, ibuprofen (3rd trimester), any hormones etc. There are many drugs contraindicated in pregnancy. We will discuss many of them later.
Drug interactions 💊 ✚ 🍷 ➜ 🚑
- it's about drug combinations you should avoid. Cause it can be really dangerous. For example, if you're taking one tablete of aspirin each day, you should avoid taking a Ginkgo biloba (which improves your memory) because combination of these drug can increase risk of bleeding problems. Aspirin prevents blood clots. Some chemicals in the blood cause blood clots and aspirin stops those chemicals. But aspirin can cause bleeding in some cases, especially when you take a larger dose. And taking aspirin with other medications that can also cause bleeding such as ginkgo biloba may increase the risk of bleeding. The mechanism of action of ginkgo biloba is the same as with aspirin. This plant slows down blood clotting.
Interactions exist not only between two drugs but very common are interactions between drug and food of some drinks. The most common interactions that you know for sure, is taking any drug with an alcohol. Everybody knows that you shouldn't take medicine with alcohol. It's dangerous.
But on the other hand, there are some interactions that are beneficial. Hormones are that type of interactions. Contraceptives are typical drugs in which two hormones interact beneficial.
Okey so it would be all for today's introduction of Pharmacology. We will continue in the next article :) If you would like to know something about concrete medicine, you can let me know in comment below this post and I will try to write a post about it :)