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[eetmewithtoast]

I am still ill. My current state of health does not do anything to reverse my previous dim view of Western Medecine.

I am no longer ill with the throat virus that knocked me on my ass last week. No, the horse-pills of Amoxicillin thoroughly quelled that within a few days. I just kept bitching about it because I'm not used to feeling sick for

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[en_ki]

If I weren't antisocial toward everyone right now, I would probably offer to read you a story anyway. Since I am, I will talk only about practical matters:

If you had a throat virus, a drug was the wrong thing to give you and the best you could have done would have been a nice placebo or random untested treatment that would (at worst) make you imagine you were getting better faster. If the doctor gave you amoxicillin, though, you had a bacterial infection, which would have had a fair chance of killing you if you had not taken antibiotics: strep throat, for example, has a tendency to spread to your bones, heart, lungs, and so on, giving it an untreated mortality rate of 30% (and perhaps suggesting to you why the average lifespan was something like half as long a hundred years ago). The right answer next time is a probably a drug that does not end in -cillin; a fair amount of people, including me, are allergic to that family of drugs. "Eastern medicine" will do approximately jack shit in the case of emergent bacterial infection (

[eetmewithtoast]

If I weren't antisocial toward everyone right now, I would probably offer to read you a story anyway.

Aw, thanks! I'm feeling much better today (ate stuff last night), but when I read my books I'll try to make my internal "reading voice" change to yours now and again. :)

you had a bacterial infection, which would have had a fair chance of killing you if you had not taken antibiotics:

It wasn't strep, but I guess it must've been some other bacterial infection. Not Dying is alright, I guess. I'm still not altogether pleased.

and you mentioned earlier that you were breaking up the pills. For future reference, Don't Do That without asking your doctor first: it makes antibiotics work less well, increasing your chance of catching/spreading resistant diseases.That's unbelievable. Why would they make them easy to break (there was a line down the middle, so they broke neatly in two) if it's Bad to break them? They're just going to have to give me a liquid form of antibiotics from now on, I guess. I coughed, spluttered, and nearly-

[en_ki]

If I had to guess, I would say that you could get away with breaking them if you don't take them both at once, but rather take the second half halfway between the first half and the next dose; but ask your doctor next time it comes up. The problem is that breaking them causes them to have significantly more surface area, which makes them dissolve faster, which makes more of the drug hit at once-so it doesn't last as long, so the bacteria get a chance to grow back before your next dose kills them again.

Regarding alcohol: RTFM that came with the pills. Alcohol with antibiotics is bad because it hinders the antibiotics. If something isn't safe to have with alcohol, it will say so.

I think I will get in around 8. I could hang out then if that works for you. Crepes would be good, but I shouldn't stay out all night.

[eetmewithtoast]

Not sure if this comment will show twice, but:

8 sounds fine. Gimme a call from the train or shortly after your arrival.

[aeshnor]

I mostly agree with ottos take, though im no fan of western med and have only been on penicillin 5 times (will be 6 by the end of the day though) and only when i was risking death without them. however, my experience with eastern and tribal/native american medicine suggests that if it WAS a virus, then while western meds cant do jack, holistic styles seemed to help a lot. just rememeber, because its untested and unregulated, theres a lot of quacks in that end of things. get one reccommended by someone you trust.

[eetmewithtoast]

I will get a recommendation, when I'm rich enough to afford one.

I'm kind of suspicious of doctors in general. A lot of times I take it easy and wait for whatever-it-is to pass while my friends are all urging me to go immediately to a doctor.

And whatever-it-is passes, and I didn't have to go further into debt for the pleasure of being prescribed unnecessary medecine.

[friode]

The problem, AFAICT, is that most doctors aren't any better than most tech support people. If you have a common problem that they happen to know how to solve, they can help you. If you have some weird problem, well, good luck getting the to correctly figure out what it is. The reason I finally saw an allergist last summer is sadly not any primary care doctor.

[eetmewithtoast]

Yeah, I remember that! And you'd be in a lot worse shape if you hadn't gone.

Right now, people with bad vision will probably think my skin is just naturally mottled pink. The spots and speckles and blotches aren't completely gone, but I'm determined to let my body do the rest of the clearing process unaided.