Erythromycin — medical torture

by Eve, in Parenting (1 Comment)

When Timmy and I were prescribed antibiotics after being exposed to a hospital worker who contracted whooping cough, the hospital neglected to inform me a possible side affect of the drug for infants is gut surgery, while adults may only have a more mild response of puking until they wish for speedy demise.

I’d thought nothing of swallowing the giant horse pills, but after a Saturday of being violently sick into a bucket, I suspected the childlike tendency of naively putting foreign objects in one’s mouth never really goes away. (There was something about the scenario of aiming projectile vomit into a bucket while balancing a feeding baby precariously underneath it all, that also made me wonder if I’d reached a new level of achievement in my multi-tasking abilities.)

While in bed feeling miserable, I thought Googling the drug with the keyword ‘stomach’ would be a clever way of finding out whether I’d been supposed to take the pills on a full stomach, or an empty one. But instead of finding any guidance there, my iPod instead returned results like this one, reporting the discovery of the drug’s link to a serious stomach problem that, in infants, must be treated with surgery — but doctors still recommend taking the antibiotic because the risk of whooping cough is so serious. This stomach problem in infants results from having a stomach muscle enlarge and prevent food from passing into the small intestine, which causes the infant to forcefully vomit, I gathered from this similar page.

I told myself that if my son started projectile vomiting and looked like he couldn’t keep anything down, I’d go quick-smart to the doctor…but I dreaded having to do so. Of course, I didn’t like the idea of him potentially needing surgery, nor could I imagine being able to budge from my sickbed without passing out while simultaneously throwing up. But I was also aware of how frustrating it is for doctors to have a panicked patient rush in waving a printed Internet page at them. Who needs a medical degree, those patients seem to believe, when there’s Google?

Fortunately, so far Timmy seems to be doing okay with his version of the antibiotic — a sweet-smelling pink syrup — although that doesn’t stop me from holding my breath in fear whenever he vomits or coughs. As for me, I haven’t touched the horse pills since. That was the most unpleasant ‘stomach upset’ in my living memory. Feeling ill I can cope with, but I’m not inspired to take medication that makes my gut feel like it’s ripping away from the rest of my body, when I think I don’t even need it. Things were fine and dandy before I had pharmaceutical ‘care’, but I live in a society with blind faith in medical abilities of the day, and apparently I’m one of the lemmings.

I wonder if there’s a pill for that…