re intravenous antibiotics in article apr spectrum xerox com leisner eso mc xerox com writes i recently had a case of shingles and my doctors wanted to give me intravenous acyclovir it was a pain finding iv sites in my arms can i have some facts about how advantageous it is to give intravenous antibiotics rather than oral i think some essential information must be missing here i e you must be suffering from a condition which has caused immunosuppression there is no indication for iv acyclovir for shingles in an otherwise healthy person the oral form can help to reduce the length of symptoms and may even help prevent the development of post herpetic neuralgia but i certainly would not subject someone to iv therapy without a good reason to address your more general question iv therapy does provide higher and more consistently high plasma and tissue levels of a drug for treating a serious infection this is the only way to be sure that a patient is getting adequate drug levels kenneth gilbert university of pittsburgh general internal medicine dammit not a programmer
