My 8 year old kid occasionally gets tongue ulcers. Everytime she gets one, we visit a doctor who specializes in Otolaryngology. All she does is use a silver nitrate stick to treat the ulcer and it is soon gone. It usually takes a few days to get an appointment and so I asked the doctor if She could prescribe some sticks so we can use them early on.
The doctor says that the sticks cannot be sold directly to patients even with a prescription in the US and most pharmacies don’t even carry it.
So my question is : why are silver nitrate sticks not available commonly while a plethora of drugs like oragel are available ?
Many OTC medications are poisons are poisons if misused. It is pretty hard to injest a single use silver nitrate applicator - with only a little bit of silver nitrate like the end of a match stick.
Moreover it the silver nitrate sticks are freely available on the Internet and eBay - people use it for wart removal too. So why don’t US pharmacies carry it ?
In thr mean time, buy a bunch online and have them ready.
There are all kinds of stuff on the web that drug stores “should” carry. I just buy the stuff I want and tuck it away in the event I will need it.
Which reminds me - I need to look up another drug!
Silver nitrate darkens when exposed to light. It will stain skin and many other things but the effect is not immediate, so a person can smear the stuff around and wonder several hours later what is causing their fingers or lips or bathroom counter top to turn dark brown.