some goon who calls himself 'black prince' keeps messaging me to ask me how to study chinese. argh. anyway, went to see the doc at the mrt station at the insistence of my parents. turns out i have slight bronchitis, -again-, and so she gave me a bagful of drugs and charged me thirty four bucks. and may i add that the clinic's range of magazines is -boring- with a capital b, because they're ALL medicine related. in the half hour that i was waiting, i learnt that heparin for short term use, and warfarin is for long term, and that heparin is an aldosterone antagonist, so patients with renal disease and those on ACE-inhibitors should watch out. there are also at least five types of hepatitis virus, of which b and c can give rise to cirrhosis and liver cancer.


c'mon, i'm sure you agree a stint in the waiting room should not turn into a pharmaco/microb crash course?


so here it is, pharmaco 101:


amoxicillin: under antibacterial drugs>beta-lactam>peniciliin>ampicillin-like. their antibacterial action seems to reside in their ability to inhibit metabolic functions vital to bacterial cell wall synthesis and to activate enzymes that destroy the cell wall. thus, penicillins affect only actively multiplying bacteria.


cetirizine: the nonsedating antihistamines astemizole and cetirizine should not be given together with the macrolide antibiotics since they will block their metabolism. some of these drugs cause an arrhythmia (not loratadine and fexofenadine). finally, all but loratadine have a category C pregnancy risk.


those are the only two durgs i could find; she gave me three other types. -sigh-