Mexican Meds
My baby has been sick for the last few weeks. It hasn’t been easy for any of us but has been an interesting foray into the world of Mexican pharmaceuticals.
As a first-time mom, I’m a little apprehensive about, well, everything. So when Diego first got sick with what seemed to be the flu, we took him to see the MD and homeopath who has been the family doctor for the past 20 years. She said we should buy Mesulid to help bring down his temperature. There was no prescription, no signed paper with her insignia, just verbal instructions.
So we went to the pharmacy. We bought the Mesulid and, sure enough, on the package it said “prescription only.” The pharmacist was kind enough to tell us how much to give Diego. We were lucky enough to have dealt with her before, and so we knew that she really was a pharmacist with medical training.
Diego kept getting worse. We took him back to the doctor. She looked at us like over-protective parents and sent us home. We kept giving him the Mesulid when his fever kept rising, as instructed by the MD.
He seemed to get better, but then seemed to get worse. The other day, he started shaking and his lips turned blue before his temperature skyrocketed. So we rushed him to the doctor’s office one last time before finding a new doctor. She took one look at him and knew she couldn’t send us home with the same instructions. So she prescribed a “light antibiotic” which turned out to be a form of penicillin and another type of medicine to lower his fever. It turns out that Mesulid can be dangerous if taken for a certain number of days, although no one seems to know exactly how many. Five? Eight? Ten?
We went back to the same pharmacy and bought the prescription medication, which we would have been able to do without the prescription. We prepared the penicillin concoction. I’m glad to say that, as of today, he is finally getting better.
None of this would have mattered much to me before having a baby. It seemed convenient to be able to walk into a pharmacy and have access to any kind of medicine I could possibly need at a low cost. When I became responsible for another little human being, things changed. Everything changed.
Photo: FranquiciasNews