Question

Why make oral antibiotics into intravenous antibiotics​?

Answer 1

When an antibiotic is taken orally, it enters the digestive system and once the capsule coating is digested, the antibiotic is absorbed by the gut and then it enters the blood stream. Then it is passed on to all the parts of the body via the blood stream. Hence, there is some time lag between the ingestion of the pill and the availability of the antibiotic in the blood.

Antibiotics, when administered intravenously, directly enter the blood stream. This has some advantages. First, the time lag is absent in this route of medicine delivery. Secondly, a higher dosage of antibiotics can be given in this method. Sometimes the dosage of antibiotics may be too high for a patient to consume it orally or a patients may not be in a position to ingest the antibiotics. Further for certain bone and lung infections IV administration is the best method of treatment as the antibiotics quickly reaches the site of infection. The dosage of antibiotics too can be increased or decreased as per the needs quickly when the antibiotic is administered as IV.