Re: What is the purpose of these shots?

Dear Mimma,  You have not given me very much information to work with to be able 
to answer your question accurately and I will have to do a little guessing and 
hope that my quesses are close.  I am quessing that you and you friend are 
young, as in not yet teenagers.  If this is true, it is a very common treatment 
procedure to give antimicrobial chemoprophylaxis to post-spleenectomy (after 
spleen removal) patients.  Antimicrobial chemoprophylaxis is just very big words 
that means the doctor will have the patient take a medicine (ANTIMICROBIAL--in 
this case an antibiotic that will either kill bacteria or keep bacteria from 
growing in the body) before there are any signs that there is a problem.  This 
is what PROPHYLAXIS means--to treat with a chemical before there are any clear 
signs to indicate that the doctor should treat the patient, because the doctor 
knows that there is a great risk of an infection occurring because of the 
removal of the spleen.  What is recommended for children after splenectomy, to 
prevent overwhelming pneumococcal infections, is a twice-a-day injection of 
penicillin V at 20 milligrams per kilogram of body weight (OR--and I know which 
one I would chose) a twice-a-day oral (by mouth) dose of 125 milligrams (under 
five years old) 250 millligrams (over 5 years old) of amoxicillin regardless of 
body weight.  Now lets back up and define OVERWHELMING PNEUMOCOCCAL INFECTIONS.  
This is a bacterial (coccal) lung infection (pneumonia) that involves such a 
powerful bacterium that it cannot be easily stopped once it gets started 
(overwhelming).  Thus, your friend's doctor is making sure that your friend does 
not have a chance of getting this type of infection by treating for this 
potential infection even before it ever would get started (prophylactic) because 
if it did get started it might end in death.  While we all must die eventually, 
we all generally want to prolong that event as long as we can, so your friend's 
doctor might continue this treatment for up to five years after the operation!  
That is the time recommended by some authorities although the length of time is 
somewhat controversial.  If I have guessed right and this is what the doctor is 
injecting, then the doctor probably chose the injection rather than oral route 
of administration to insure close monitoring of the patient and positive proof 
of delivery of the antibiotic.  You say the injection is in the stomach but of 
course that is really just an injection into the abdomen, where the stomach is 
found, along with many other organs.  The injection really should not go into 
the stomach at all, otherwise the effect will be lost because the penicillin V 
will be digested like any other protein that you would eat because penicillin V 
is a protein.
This treatment is sometimes given to adults (but oral rather than injection) 
after splenectomy however a positive effect from this treatment in adults has 
not been determined.  Surely the injections are not of bacteria as you suggest.  
Introducing bacteria into the body would be just the opposite of what you would 
want to do after splenectomy surgery.  I hope this has answered your question 
fully.  If so, tell your friend all about it so that he will feel better about 
having to have all those "shots" which are never any fun.
With best wishes,
Dr. S