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Question for Doctors
Topic Started: Dec 10 2011, 08:45 PM (167 Views)
Riley
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HOLY CARP!!!
In the past year I've had strep throat twice. The first time, I was prescribed 30 Amoxicillin 500MG, for $20.27. The second time I was prescribed 6 Azithromycin 250MG for $24.07.

My girlfriend was just prescribed 20 Clarithromycin for a sinus infection for $70.35.

Is a much more expensive antibiotic really needed for a sinus infection vs. strep throat? I was always under the (perhaps uneducated) impression that infections were infections and antibiotics were antibiotics.
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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
Not true. Different antibiotics do better and act differently against different infections.
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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Riley
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HOLY CARP!!!
Mikhailoh
Dec 10 2011, 08:57 PM
Not true. Different antibiotics do better and act differently against different infections.
I figured that must be the case since they wouldn't be prescribing more expensive ones needlessly, but that big of a difference still surprised me.
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George K
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Finally
Mikhailoh
Dec 10 2011, 08:57 PM
Not true. Different antibiotics do better and act differently against different infections.
And different sites of infection (throat vs sinus) frequently have different organisms. If you have, say, Streptococcus in your throat, the antibiotic that kills it might well not be effective for the organism that's causing a sinusitis.

Antibiotics are WAAAAY overprescribed - patient's expect to get one for every infection (even viral, which antibiotics are worthless against). By overprescribing them, we've selected for the more virulent and drug-resistant organisms. So, we need a newer generation of antibiotics (more expensive) to kill that new organism. Of course, they are more expensive.

When I was in medical school, we never heard of MRSA, and when I was a kid penicillin could kill just about anything. I don't remember the last time I saw penicillin used.
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bachophile
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HOLY CARP!!!
without going too much into the economics, which is a completely different story, strep throat is caused by strep group a, or strep pyogenes, which is usually easily penicillin sensitive.

sinusitis is caused by either strep group b (strep pneumoniae), hemophilus influenza or ocassionaly staph, which all may be penicillin resistant.

why amoxicillin is less expensive than clarithro is another story altogether.

production, demand, the goddamn pharmacy, a million factors not necessarily connected to the bug it kills.

ooops pwned by gk
Edited by bachophile, Dec 10 2011, 09:21 PM.
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