Hi doctor, I have an 8-year-old son who is suffering from fever for the past three days. We have not taken him to the doctor. We have not done any tests. But we believe that it is an enteric fever. So I brought Cefpodoxime for him. My concern is to know the exact dose of it. Please suggest.
Hi. As a parent, I am sure you have to do the best for your son. It is not right to give antibiotics to him without proper guidance. If it is not a confirmed case of enteric fever, it can also be a simple viral fever which may not even need antibiotics. Sometimes, urinary tract infections also occur with temperature, and the urinary symptoms are not shown. There is a rising trend of antibiotic resistance among people, which means that the necessary antibiotics do not even work for many infections and a higher level of antibiotics are used. This resistance occurs due to indiscriminate use of antibiotics. If this continues, we may face a problem in the future where the infections will not have the ability to respond to any of the available antibiotics. I am advising this because I want to change the way you look at antibiotics. Kindly meet a qualified doctor and do the necessary clinical examination. He will suggest the relevant tests. Please do not start any medicine based on your intuition. Even an experienced physician needs laboratory tests to confirm typhoid. I hope you understand it. If you still want to go for laboratory tests, I recommend the following tests to rule out the infection. They are complete blood count, blood smear for malarial parasite, urine routine, and Widal test (tube agglutination method) for typhoid. I suggest you meet a doctor for a clinical examination before going ahead with these tests. I am sure you will not give any medication to your son without knowing his clinical condition.