18 Tips To A Safer Medication Use
By www.menhealthonline.biz
1. List all medicines you take. Include name, dose and frequency. Don't forget to include vitamins, minerals, herbs, topical medications, eye and ear drops, sprays, weight loss aids, oral contraceptives.
2. Know the brand and generic names of the medication. In fact, many people know the medications they take by its color and size rather than its name.
3. Know what condition/disease the medication is for. It’s important because you are more likely to use it correctly, more likely to know what to expect from the medication, and better able to report what you are using and problems to your doctors and pharmacist.
4. Avoid getting the wrong prescription from the pharmacy. Check the medication you pick up. Make sure it matches up with the prescription.
5. Use online drug interaction checker that allows you to enter the medications you take and check for possible drug interactions.
6. Conditions that place person at higher risk for drug interactions include:
- Taking three or more medications for chronic conditions.
- Genetically based variations in drug-metabolizing capacity.
- Advanced age.
- Certain diseases (anemia, asthma, cardiovascular disease, critical care/intensive care patients, diabetes, epilepsy, gastrointestinal disease, liver disease, hypothyroid)
- People cared for by several doctors.
7. Drugs most likely to be involved in clinically significant interactions are:
- Drugs with a narrow therapeutic index (e.g. warfarin, digoxin)
- Drugs that require cautious dosage control (e.g. antihypertensives, antidiabetic drugs)
- Liver enzyme inducers (e.g. rifampicin, phenytoin) and inhibitors (e.g. cimetidine, ketoconazole)
- Drugs with multiple pharmacological effects
8. Pay attention to how you feel after starting the new medicine and note any changes. Assume that any new symptom you develop after starting a new medication might be caused by the drug. Use online tool to check for side effects.
9. Inform the doctor if medication doesn't seem to be effective. No medication has 100% efficacy rate.
10. Avoid treating adverse drug reactions and drug-induced disease with more drugs. Distinguish the real disease and adverse reaction to the medication. Adverse drug reaction should be managed by lowering the dose of the
