• Question: why do we need injections why not tablets

    Asked by joshprudhoe12 to Bob, Katie, Nisha, Sallie, Vee on 4 Jul 2012. This question was also asked by sonalm.
    • Photo: Sallie Baxendale

      Sallie Baxendale answered on 4 Jul 2012:

      Some medicines will get destroyed if they go through the digestive system, so we have to get them into our bodies in a different way – injections into body fat or into the blood means that the medicine can get to work straight away without having to do battle with stomach acid.

    • Photo: Bob Bonwick

      Bob Bonwick answered on 4 Jul 2012:

      This is an excellent question! Think about where the tablet has to go before it takes effect, the stomach. The stomach produces hydrochloric acid in large amounts, this acid can denature (break up) a lot of the drugs that we take. If you look in the side of some tablet boxes you will see the words “gastro-resistant coating” this means that the drug compaines have made the tablet capable of withstanding the acid long enough to be of some use to the taker.

      Injections are generally into the blood stream, this gives them immediate effect and bypasses the aggressive stomach acids. Sometimes the injection is into the muscles (offten the buttocks) to alow it to slowly be absorbed by the body and have a longer lasting effect.

      In the case of anesthetics, a greater amount of control is needed, as I said, injections have immediate effect. If you want to give a person a local anesthetic you can’t give them a pill that will numb just the left arm, to you need needles. With a general anesthetic we need to make sure that the right does for the size of the person is delivered, while the surgeon is working, the anesthetist monitors the patient constantly to make sure they are asleep, but not in any danger of being too asleep.

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