“I’m not sure if that Rx is a pill or topical.”
I had hookworm years ago in my feet. Thankfully my doctor was a Vietnam medic and knew what it was and prescribed medicine to rub on my feet. (He called in the other doctors and staff to look at it as it was so rare for the USA). It got better, but not completely gone so I asked for some more.
Went to the pharmacy and the bottle said “drink 1 tablespoon at bedtime.” I told the lady that was wrong - I’m supposed to rub it on my feet.
“Well - that’s what it says, so the doctor must have figured you needed to do that instead to cure it!”
Bedtime comes around, and I’m looking at this spoonful of crap that I had been rubbing on my feet the previous day. I put it back in the bottle and called my doc the next day.
“Heh - no, just keep rubbing it on your feet. But it wouldn’t have hurt you - it can be taken orally as well. Except it wouldn’t have done any good on the hookworms in your feet!”
I called the pharmacy back and gave them what for, and asked to speak with the pharmacist. “Well - it said to rub on your feet, but I had never heard of that, so I changed it to the typical take orally at bedtime.”
I gave them even more heck after that - changing the doctor’s orders and all.
Ivermectin is a more recent antihelmintic (anti-worm medicine), but who knows? Your doc may really be on top of things.
It was rolled out as a drug in 1981, and won its inventors a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2015 as the full knowledge of its usefulness had become known. It’s on the WHO List of Basic Medicines.