Do medications taken orally enter the bloodstream?

Question

Explain this.

Answer 1

Yes of course they get in the bloodstream,

after they are taken orally they dissolve and are distributed throughout the body by the moving blood stream.

Answer 2

Of course! They enter the portal circulation, perhaps undergo some "first pass" metabolism in the liver, and from there enter the general circulation. If they didn't, they wouldn't do much good. In actuality, there are a few that don't but are used anyway. Vancomycin, for instance, must be given intravenously for serious systemic infections because it isn't absorbed when taken orally, but it is also used orally to treat a special form of diarrheal illness, precisely because it stays in the gut all the way through.

Some of the newer antibiotics are so well absorbed that there's no difference in the dosage. Levofloxacin, for an example, is used for serious infections like pneumonia and pyelonephritis, and the same dose may be given either orally  or intravenously, depending largely on whether the patient is able to swallow the pill and keep it down (since a lot of those people tend to vomit, that IS a consideration).

Answer 3

everything you put into your body eventually gets into your blood be it nutrients (broken down from the food you eat) or drugs.

when you pop a pill it will disolve in your stomach, releasing chemical compounds that can be absorbed into the blood stream through your gut. the design of these compounds hopes to take advantage concentration gradients or  cellular receptors or trasporters to reach its target. if the chemical compound is too large to be absorbed, then nothing will happen--it will be eliminated (much like how we eat fiber, but can't digest, we just get rid of it)...and someone is going to get fired for wasting money on a dud.

the whole point of it all is to get into your bloodstream (systemic circulation).

Answer 4

Of course. How else would they be circulated through the body.  After digestion simply put the pills are broken down and distributed throughout the body.