Myths and Misconceptions in Medicine

Jul 21, 2016 News

Doctor, can opening an amoxicillin capsule on my open wound help to kill the bacteria?

One of the most frequently asked questions by patients as it relates to open wounds.

More often than not we experience patients, coming into contact with us with this dilemma. One of the things that they frequently would relate to us is that after having an open wound, in the hopes of obtaining relief they decided to do what we like to call self-medication.

And what is this means of treating their open wounds? Simply opening an amoxicillin capsule and applying it over their open wound or wounds.

Does this kill the infection or is it just a misconception. Let’s find out. We have all done it at some point. If we have not done it our parents or even our grandparents have tried this method of treating an open wound.

The truth is that it is the blood stream that feeds the skin and not the other way around. Amoxcillin is described as having an enteric coating. This enteric coating serves to protect the capsule from the stomach, and for it to be absorbed after the stomach, in the intestines. With this in mind, it is safe to say that crushing anything enteric and applying it topically is not recommended.

Amoxcillin and other antibiotics work best in, or near the blood stream at 37 degrees Celsius, and it is necessary to kill the infection under the skin to resolve the problem on the dermis.

However it must be clarified that in our daily practice we do recommend the use of antibiotic creams as preventative treatment for non-infected open wounds and also to treat mild skin infections.

Your doctor will decide at what degree of the skin infection requires only topical antibiotic creams. Applying antibiotic creams to severe skin infections runs the risk of not treating any underlying conditions present under the skin.

So at this point we can conclude that opening a capsule of amoxicillin and applying its powder to an infected wound will not kill the infection, making this conclusion nothing more than a grand misconception. (Dr Trion Bowen).