How to deal with overdose

In the use of medication there is always the advice 'to take the right dose of medicine, enough time'.

'Right dose' means to use the medicine in the right amount for a single dose or for the whole day. And 'enough time' is to be used for a set number of days. Because it only takes a 'wrong' to take medicine, our health will 'go a mile'!

There are quite a lot of people who are interested in taking the right medicine, but putting it in case of accidentally taking an overdose will lead to something and how to handle it?

Misuse of the dose may cause complications

Misuse of the drug includes two cases: insufficient dose and overdose. Inadequate use of drugs not only eliminates the individual's illness, but sometimes harms the community.

Such use of antibiotics inadequate may lead to drug-resistant bacteria, which are not destroyed and then harmful to anyone infected by it. And overdose is harmful to people who take the medicine, can even cause death. Because most drugs, if used in the right dose, it is a medicine, and overdose is toxic no more and no less.

The drug dose , or therapeutic dose , is not arbitrarily assigned but is the result of a research process, called a pharmacological trial. First of all, the drug must test toxicity, identify ' lethal dose 50' (abbreviated LD50), test on animals (usually white mice), to determine the lethal dose of 50% of the animal. . From there, determine the 'maximum dose' , ie the dose if the maximum level is exceeded will cause poison or death .

The therapeutic dose is determined between the minimum and the maximum dose.

Also on animals, pharmacists identify 'minimum doses' , which lower doses will not work (eg hypotension or sedation). The therapeutic dose is determined between the minimum and the maximum dose. The drug is safer when the distance between the treatment dose and the maximum dose is larger, and the drug is more toxic when the distance is narrow. Thus, it is necessary to undergo the research process to determine the therapeutic dose and this dose will depend on the patient's body, the condition that is fixed to maximize the therapeutic effect and minimize the Side effects or complications.

Do not combine it once

Depending on the time that the drug works, we have a once-daily dose, a 24-hour dose (ie all day), a dose for one course of treatment. For example, for some common infections, a single adult dose is an 500 mg amoxicillin tablet, a daily dose of three or four times and a dose for one course of treatment is ten days. For children, usually calculated on weight, for example erythromycin dose for children is 40mg / kg / day and divided into several times a day. The recommended dose for a day is usually divided several times a day, absolutely not combined once. Some people think that taking a lumped-up pill will work very hard to get rid of the disease, doing so may be dangerous because of overdose.

How to handle overdose medication

But what should I do if I try to take an overdose? If the overdose is not overly high, it is a little too much to drink, the body is metabolized well, it may not work at all. But if after taking an overdose (due to accidental but possible suicide), they start to see disorders (depending on the type of medicine, the disorders will be different), it may have poisoned the drug, established ie must handle according to emergency poisoning.

First of all, if the poisoned person is awake, vomit . If there is apnea, give artificial respiration . After that, quickly take them to the nearest medical facility to save the level.

Emergency treatment will be timely if the medical staff knows that the drug is toxic. Therefore, we need to gather information immediately by: asking the poisoned person or the person around to see what medication the patient has taken, if possible, take medicine, packaging or prescription to show the doctor quickly. Quickly find the antidote.

Particularly for children, due to incomplete development of the body, a lot of drugs that require only a little overdose can become a toxic and special dose, the emergence of poisoning is more difficult than in adults. Therefore, giving children drugs must be considered important. Do not be for a bit of negligence of adults that make children suffer unfortunate consequences.