If you or your child has ever needed to take an antibiotic for a bacterial infection, there's a good chance the medication prescribed was either amoxicillin or Augmentin amoxicillin clavulanate.
A common assumption about these two medications is that Augmentin is simply a stronger version of amoxicillin but that isn't quite accurate.
Augmentin contains a second active ingredient, which makes it more appropriate for treating certain infections than others. The same holds true for amoxicillin and, to make the distinctions between the drugs even hazier, there are a few infections that both treat equally effectively. Ultimately, the antibiotic a healthcare provider prescribes will depend on the type of illness being treated and the bacteria responsible for it.
Amoxicillin is often the first antibiotic prescribed for common bacterial infections, particularly those that cause illness in children, such as ear, nose, and throat infections, including tonsillitis. This antibiotic also is the first drug of choice for:. Note that although amoxicillin can kill many of the same bacteria as penicillin, it is less effective than penicillin against Streptococcus pneumococcus, the bacteria commonly associated with meningitis and systemic bacteremia. The side effects of amoxicillin tend to be relatively mild, which is another reason it's often prescribed for kids.
The most common ones include rash, vaginal itching, and a dark or "hairy tongue. As with penicillin, there is a risk of an allergic reaction to amoxicillin in those predisposed to it. These can be life-threatening. It's vital a healthcare provider take a medical history before prescribing amoxicillin to determine if a patient has a known history of allergy to antibiotics. Augmentin is amoxicillin combined with a beta-lactamase inhibitor called clavulanate, an ingredient that blocks the enzymes that contribute to antibiotic resistance.
The addition of a beta-lactamase blocker to amoxicillin allows Augmentin to overcome resistance to harder-to-treat bacteria, broadening the spectrum of infections it can treat.
It is for this reason that Augmentin is referred to as a broad-spectrum antibiotic. Augmentin can treat the same bacteria as amoxicillin, but also is effective against certain harder-to-treat infections, including:.
It should be noted there are a few infections for which amoxicillin and Augmentin are prescribed equally:. This photo contains content that some people may find graphic or disturbing. The most common side effect of Augmentin is diarrhea. Some people may also experience nausea, vomiting, yeast infections, and rash.
If you have an infection and don't necessarily know which bacteria is causing it, it may seem to make sense to use an antibiotic that would kill the most bugs.
However, doing that can cause major problems. Antibiotics used indiscriminately may destroy "good" bacteria along with "bad," thereby altering the body's natural flora and allowing even worse bacteria to proliferate. Another, even more pressing concern is that using broad-spectrum antibiotics can lead to antibiotic resistance.
When this happens, a few mutated bacteria may survive, some of which may be naturally resistant to the antibiotic you were taking. Because you didn't "hit the infection hard enough," these survivors now have the opportunity to multiply and become the dominant strain. As such, the next time you develop an infection, the antibiotic will not work anywhere near as well.
If this happens with broad-spectrum antibiotic like Augmentin, you will be at greater risk of having multiple types of drug resistance. With a "narrow-spectrum" antibiotic like amoxicillin, the consequence may be less severe. Folate test The Folate test measures and monitors the levels of folic acid in the blood.
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Humans gained their first powerful weapon in the war against bacteria in the s. Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming was culturing a bacteria, when he noticed that a mold growing in one of his petri dishes had killed off the surrounding bacteria, according to the Nobel Prize website. After much work, he discovered that the active agent was what is now known as penicillin named after the fungus, penicillium, which produces it.
Though penicillin worked wonders, it had some side effects and was not effective against all that many bacteria. So, in the s, scientists at Beecham Research Laboratories, which was created by the same company that produced Lucozade soft drinks and Brylcreem hair gel, began developing new antibiotics.
Their strategy was simple and clever: they used the core chemical structure of penicillin, but added different side chains to it, Geddes said. One of their early successful drugs was amoxicillin, a close relative to penicillin. Both amoxicillin and other penicillins have a key molecular structure that helps the kill bacteria: a chemical ring called a beta-lactam. Beta-lactam rings bind to enzymes in bacterial cell membranes. These enzymes are responsible for cross-linking peptidoglycans, the building blocks used to form the bacterial cell wall.
When drugs like amoxicillin disable these membrane enzymes, they prevent the bacteria from building up the cell wall, even as the bacteria continue to break down their old cell wall.
The bacteria die as a result. Amoxicillin was seen as a breakthrough because it was absorbed better than earlier antibiotics, had fewer of the side effects of antibiotics such as methicillin, and seemed to work against a broad class of bacteria. However, it had one flaw: at least some resistant populations of bacteria had evolved an ability to fight amoxicillin and other antibiotics by making an enzyme called beta-lactamase, which essentially snipped the beta lactam ring open and disabled it.
But in , Beecham Research Laboratories discovered that a certain bacteria called Streptomyces clavuligerus produced a chemical lookalike to penicillin, called clavulanic acid, as a byproduct of its fermentation, according to an article published in in the International Journal of Microbial Agents. Like other antibiotics, it had a beta-lactam ring, but on its own, wasn't much good at killing bacteria.
However, when combined with amoxicillin, it created a superb antibiotic.
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