How does medication know where to go once inserted into the body?

Question

I have always wondered how a certain medication knows where to go, for instance when I have a headache I take some excedrin and it goes away..how does that pill know where to go in my body once it is swallowed? Another example is when I take my acne medicine it clears up my face..how does it know to clear up my face? Thanks!

Answer 1

see when it enters your body i breaks and gets in your blood stream and it eventually finds stuff a lands on it and makes it all better :)

Answer 2

The pill gets dissolved in the stomach and when the stuff inside it goes through your intestines, it gets absorbed into the blood, which goes everywhere(including your brain) If you acne medicine is applied directly to the skin, it probably (depending on what type of medication it is) cleans out your pores and skin where you applied it, like how soap and water washes away dirt, except the two are a bit different.

Answer 3

Actually, when you take medicine such as a pill, it doesn't really know where to go.  It is taken pretty much everywhere in your body, but you feel better in those spots where its effects would work (for example a headache).

Answer 4

Different medications target different drug receptors (science of pharmacology).

Answer 5

Regardless of how it gets absorbed it gets into you blood.  Once in the bloodstream it goes everywhere for the most part.  The reason it works in certain areas for certain things is because the active ingredients are designed to act on certain areas.  It may be that the medicine is designed to act on a certain receptor.  It may be that the medicine is designed to work on a certain enzyme.  For example, Atenolol is a blood pressure and heart medicine. It's in the class of drugs called beta blockers because it blocks certain beta receptors that you have in your body.  By blocking the correct beta receptors it decreases blood pressure and slows down your heart.  That's what we usually want it to do.

Unfortunately, most medicines also act other area of your body than we would like them to. This is why medicines have side effects.  It would be nice if Atenolol ONLY acted on those beta receptors we want them to.  But, Atenolol can interfere with therapy in diabetics by masking low blood glucose signs.  It can also interfere with breathing in some patients with breathing problems because it can block beta receptors that we don't want blocked.  It gets really complicated.  

Suffice it to say, because the medication doesn't know where to go it can cause effects we don't want because it can "go" anywhere.  

Answer 6

Small molecules go into the bloodstream and then pretty much go everywhere. Some larger molecules cannot pass the blood-brain immune barrier.

Very advanced techniques are sometimes employed to target certain tissues, usually in cancer treatments.  

Answer 7

The medication doesn't know where to go.  It just happens that the body digests it and it hits the bloodstream just like eating food the body breaks down the food into smaller components which are absorbed into the bloodstream.  Then it gets disbursed throughout the body.  It just happens where to go is along the bloodstream.