When it comes to antibiotics, cephalosporin and amoxicillin are the first drugs in many people’s minds. These two antibiotics are often used by many families.
If you have a cold, fever, headache or accidentally fall and get injured, you can take antibiotics to reduce inflammation and help your body recover faster.
However, I also want to remind friends in life that although cephalosporin and amoxicillin are both antibiotics, there are still many differences in medicine. Let’s learn about the differences between them.
01 What exactly are antibiotics?
Antibiotics originally refer to the chemical substances produced by various microorganisms to resist the invasion of other microorganisms in the environment and protect their own safety. Later, people used microbial methods to promote the antibiotic producing bacteria to increase the production of antibiotics in the production process.
And these chemical substances are separated and purified by chemical methods to make antibacterial drugs for human use, called antibiotics.
The bacteriostatic or bactericidal effects of antibiotics and other antibacterial drugs are only directed against the mechanisms that are unique to bacteria but not human or other animals and plants.
The main mechanisms of antibiotics include inhibition of bacterial cell wall synthesis, enhancement of bacterial cell membrane permeability, interference with bacterial protein synthesis and inhibition of bacterial nucleic acid replication.
02 Mechanism of action
1. Inhibit the synthesis of bacterial cell wall, mainly including β- Lactam antibiotics.
2. Polymyxin antibiotics can change the permeability of bacterial cell membrane.
3. Inhibit or interfere with the protein synthesis of bacterial cells, including aminoglycosides, tetracyclines, macrolides, etc.
4. Quinolones are mainly used to inhibit bacterial nucleic acid synthesis.
5. Hinder the synthesis of folic acid, mainly including sulfonamides.
03 Cephalosporin and amoxicillin are both antibiotics with different effects? Doctor reminded: don’t eat indiscriminately if you don’t understand
1. Different objects
Amoxicillin is more suitable for respiratory tract and genitourinary tract, with strong bactericidal rate and less toxic and side effects. It is relatively safe for pregnant women and children.
Cephalosporin has a broad antibacterial spectrum, strong antibacterial effect and low toxicity. It is suitable for respiratory tract skin and soft tissue infection, urogenital tract infection and other diseases.
2. The efficacy of different parts is different
For amoxicillin and other drugs, the absorption and utilization effect in the stomach and intestines is better, and it can play a certain inhibitory effect on a variety of bacteria and effectively relieve physical discomfort. It mainly acts on inflammatory diseases, such as urinary system inflammation, typhoid fever inflammation, respiratory tract inflammation, digestive tract inflammation and so on.
However, cephalosporins are the antibiotics with the best anti-inflammatory and bactericidal effects. The inflammation mainly affected by cephalosporins includes bacterial infectious diseases, bronchitis, severe retrogression, prostatitis and so on. Especially for severe infections, the use of cephalosporin is more effective.
3. The possible side effects of medication are different
Amoxicillin brings less side effects to the body. The most common side effects are vomiting, diarrhea, nausea and other gastrointestinal adverse reactions. Some people may have headache, lethargy and rash. In general, amoxicillin has low adverse effects on the body.
As a variety of antibiotics, cephalosporins not only have gastrointestinal reactions, but also cause certain damage to the liver and kidney. In particular, the first generation cephalosporin is the most obvious. Although it has been improved, more attention should be paid when taking drugs.
4. Different safety levels
In fact, the development of antibiotic drugs has been for a long time. As the first generation cephalosporin, it has strong nephrotoxicity after taking. It was not until the formulation was continuously improved and the second and third generations appeared that the toxicity of the kidney gradually weakened.
However, amoxicillin, as the most widely used antibiotic drug, has less side effects. At the same time, there is no obvious hepatorenal toxicity, and amoxicillin may be more suitable for some people in terms of safety.
5. Different contraindications
If you want to use amoxicillin, you must pay attention. If you are allergic to penicillin, you must not use it. Patients with urticaria, eczema, small boat and hay fever should not use it. Patients with renal dysfunction and patients with infectious mononucleosis should not be used.
If you want to use cephalosporin, you also need to pay attention to whether you are allergic to penicillin. People with allergic constitution should take it with caution.
6. Whether skin test is required
As amoxicillin belongs to penicillin class, skin test shall be conducted before clinical application, whether by injection or oral administration.
There is no mandatory requirement for cephalosporin in China. Except for the clinical skin test recommended in the instruction manual, other tests are not required.
04 there is no doubt about the role of antibiotics, but we should pay attention to these points when using drugs
1. The pathogen should be identified as soon as possible
Try to take samples from the blood and sputum of the infected part of the patient before the application of antibiotic drugs, and carry out bacterial culture or drug sensitivity test, so as to select targeted drugs.
If the patient is seriously infected, take samples and send them for culture, speculate the possible pathogenic bacteria according to the infection situation, select appropriate drugs according to the characteristics of antibacterial drugs, and carry out empirical anti infection treatment.
2. It can’t be taken with traditional Chinese Medicine
Traditional Chinese medicine is broad and profound, and the ingredients of many Chinese herbal medicines are also particular. Therefore, when taking antibiotics, you must pay attention not to eat them together with traditional Chinese medicine.
Some components of traditional Chinese medicine will affect the efficacy together with antibiotics. For example, Coptis chinensis and ephedra should not be combined with acidic cephalosporins.
3. Pay attention to diet
During the period of taking antibiotic drugs, it is best to pay attention to smoking and drinking, and not to eat spicy, spicy, greasy and cold food.
Because most antibiotics stimulate the gastrointestinal mucosa of the human body, if the diet is not light at this time.
Eating spicy and stimulating food may increase the risk of gastrointestinal discomfort, and may even cause inflammation and ulceration of gastrointestinal mucosa.
4. Do not reuse similar antibiotics
However, sometimes different antibiotics are used in combination to take synergistic effect. The indications are: severe infection with unknown etiology; Mixed infection or infection that can not be controlled by a single antimicrobial agent (for example, periodontitis is mostly a mixed infection of aerobic bacteria and anaerobic bacteria), and the generation of drug resistance is prolonged (in popular terms, it does not give the pathogenic microorganisms a chance to breathe).
Post time: Aug-29-2022