Hua Zi saw a news that an 11-year-old girl living in Changsha was fed 7 kinds of cold medicine by her parents within 2 days of having a cold. As a result, the symptoms of the cold did not relieve, but became more serious. After being sent to the hospital for emergency treatment, he was diagnosed with acute liver injury, the cause of which was related to the various cold medicines he took.
Actually, this news is nothing new to Huazi. Every year, many patients suffer from drug-induced diseases due to medication errors. Four years ago, a 27-year-old graduate student died of severe liver damage after taking a combination of cold medicines.
First, cold medicine is the “hardest hit area” of medication errors
In medication errors, cold medicines are the most common. This is because most cold medicines are over-the-counter (OTC) medicines with high safety. You can buy them yourself and take them according to the instructions. , can relieve cold symptoms, but it may cause problems when used improperly.
Most combination cold medicines contain acetaminophen, a commonly used antipyretic and pain reliever. When taken in normal doses, the side effects are very low, and it can be used safely by pregnant women and young children. However, if an excessive dose is taken, it will cause damage to the liver and even life-threatening.
Some people will take multiple cold medicines at the same time in order to get better faster, resulting in the accumulation of acetaminophen poisoning. Danger to life. In some European and American countries, because of the difficulty in obtaining prescription drugs, large doses of acetaminophen are even used as the drug of choice for suicide.
When taking cold medicine, you should pay attention to the ingredients and content of the medicine. The usual adult dose of acetaminophen is 0.5g each time, and the repeated doses should be separated by more than 4 hours, and the total daily dose should not exceed 2g. If it is used for antipyretic, it should not be used continuously for more than 3 days; if it is used for pain relief, it should not be used continuously for more than 10 days.
Second, there is no medicine to “cure” a cold
Fever, chills, drowsiness, runny nose, cough, stuffy nose and other cold symptoms will appear after a person has a cold, which makes people very uncomfortable, so people will use various cold Medicine tries to cure a cold. But the problem is that the existing medicines for humans cannot cure colds.
The vast majority of colds are caused by viruses. When the virus infects cells, it can cause a variety of cold symptoms. The existing human drugs cannot directly kill the virus in the infected cells, and the virus can only be cleared by the body’s immune system.
It takes a certain amount of time for the body’s immune system to recognize the virus and produce antibodies to eliminate the virus. The common cold takes about 7 days to heal, and the influenza takes about 10 days to heal. No drug can shorten this natural course.
Third, medication is to make oneself “more comfortable”
You may be wondering, if medicine doesn’t cure a cold, what is the purpose of our cold medicine? Hua Zi said, The real role of cold medicine is to fight cold symptoms and let us live the natural course of cold more comfortably.
But compound cold medicine is not recommended when taking medicine, because compound cold medicine is a compound preparation with multiple ingredients in a fixed dose, and different ingredients can relieve colds However, each person’s symptoms are different, and it is not convenient to precisely control the dosage of compound medicines, so the best way is to use single medicines for cold symptoms.
If you have a fever, use antipyretics; if you have runny nose and tears, you can use anti-allergic drugs; if you have a cough, you can use antitussives; if you have a stuffy nose, you can use mucosal decongestants… Using a single drug can better control the dose, avoid adverse reactions caused by the use of unrelated drug components, and avoid the risk of overdose caused by repeated drug use when multiple drugs are used in combination.
To sum up, I hope everyone can gain experience from this case of medication error, read the instructions carefully when taking medication, try to avoid using compound cold medicine, and don’t mix things you don’t understand. drug. Although cold medicine is an over-the-counter medicine, it is best to take it reasonably under the guidance of a doctor or pharmacist to avoid the risk of medication. I am Huazi, a pharmacist. Welcome to follow me and share more health knowledge.