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Imagine being prescribed STI medication to treat diarrhea…
My colleague’s boss wondered why he was taking medication to treat a vaginal infection, yet he had a running stomach.
What you need to know:
- The ‘pharmacist’ he had consulted had prescribed medication to treat his running stomach.
- Turns out that this medication, is used to treat bacterial vaginosis and trichomoniasis, which is a sexually transmitted infection.
I am aware that lately I’ve been recounting conversations I’ve had with colleagues as a basis for my column. Please bear with me, I spend most of my week at work, therefore most of my interactions take place in an office setting.
This week, allow me to kick off by narrating an interaction I had with a workmate on Tuesday this week. The workmate in question is a photographer I’ve worked with for years. We worked together in the trenches when I joined the Nation as a reporter, and we, therefore, got to build a good rapport over the years. I rarely go out in the field now, so it is long since we worked on an assignment together, but whenever we meet in the corridors, we chat.
Anyway, on Tuesday he stopped by my desk, and realising I hadn’t seen him for a couple of days, I inquired whether he had taken a break from work, to which he informed me that he had been home sick. He had been holed up in the house, nursing a relentless case of diarrhoea, and being like (most?) men, rather than go to hospital, he had decided to self-medicate, but the meds he was taking were not helping matters.
Sexually transmitted infection
Eventually, his boss got concerned and called him to ask whether he was feeling better and when he was returning to the office, after all, there was work to be done. When he informed her he wasn’t feeling any better, she asked what the doctor had said, to which he replied he had bought medicine from a chemist near where he lived.
To cut a long story short, he sent her a picture of the said medication to prove that he was, indeed, sick. This is where the story gets interesting. A few minutes after sending the picture, his boss called him, sounding aghast, and wondered why he was taking medication to treat a vaginal infection…
The ‘pharmacist’ he had consulted had prescribed medication called Secnidazol to treat his running stomach. Turns out that this medication, according to Google, is used to treat bacterial vaginosis and trichomoniasis, which is a sexually transmitted infection.
The poor man had been taking the tablets faithfully as prescribed for a couple of days. He told me he was so shocked, his running stomach stopped running immediately.
Unsuitable medications
I haven’t laughed like I did that day in a long time, but after the laughter died down, I wondered what it was about hospitals that made (most?) men immune to them. More important, that story brought to the fore the long-running problem of dubious ‘pharmacists’ running the many chemists that dot our neighbourhoods.
Many are conveniently located and should your child develop a fever late in the evening, they are the ones you run to, to buy medication. Or should you develop a headache, they are right there, offering an instant solution. Unfortunately, as the unfortunate incident with my colleague showed, not all chemists are being run by bona fide pharmacists. The one that prescribed medication to treat an STI did not even have the presence of mind to take their phone and search ‘medicine for diarrhoea’ like the rest of us do.
This story may sound funny, but when you think about it, it is no laughing matter. The thought of how many other unsuitable medications this 'pharmacist' has dispensed makes me shudder, because the truth is that wrong treatment may introduce life-long health complications. Which brings to the fore the matter of under-regulation in the health sector, a factor that has led to an influx of unlicensed facilities and practitioners, in the process risking the lives of millions of Kenyans.
