Patient was educated on the side effects of using Cefotaxime as follows:
- Central nervous system findings
- Cefotaxime use can sometimes result in severe dizziness, confusion, hallucinations, tremors, and seizures.
- Pain and inflammation
- Pain and inflammation at the site of injection is most common side effect to Cefotaxime use.
- Nausea and vomiting:
- This is the most common side effect of Cefotaxime.
- Taking the antibiotic with some food and water can minimize the effects of nausea and vomiting.
- Diarrhea
- Human intestines have a lot of bacteria, both good and bad, living in a sensitive balance with each other.
- This helps maintain the normal natural intestinal environment. Cefotaxime works by killing the bacteria.
- While doing this, Cefotaxime does not differentiate between good and bad bacteria. Consequently, apart from killing the bad infectious bacteria, Cefotaxime also kills the good bacteria in the intestinal system, thus compromising the balance between good and bad bacteria.
- This can result in reduction in the number of good bacteria and increase in the number of Cefotaxime resistant bad bacteria, leading to irritation of the intestinal mucosa and diarrhea.
- Diarrhea secondary to the clostridium difficile bacteria in the intestines, is a standard example for this.
