Taking medication in the proper manner can be a pretty imposing challenge, especially for elderly individuals.
Why?
Well, as you grow old, you tend to become somewhat forgetful. Thus, it becomes impossible for you to remember everything correctly. If you are handling too many medicines at once, it’ll be even trickier for you to manage everything.
In some cases, you may end up taking the wrong drugs together, which, in turn, can lead to life-threatening situations.
An example of such an error is taking a migraine drug (Imitrex) and a depression medicine (Sarafem) together. Each of these modules affects serotonin (a brain chemical). If your serotonin level decreases suddenly, it can cause serotonin syndrome.
Taking A Closer Look At Medicine Intake Problems
As mentioned before, taking medicines correctly and on time can be a tricky subject. Hence, if you are not too careful, your habits may end up affecting your health instead.
Due to this reason, learning about medicinal intake problems and solutions is a must for everyone. Hopefully, this section can help you to some extent with it.
However, if you need some oral medication help or assistance regarding something else, make sure to contact your doctor today!
Problem With Dosage
Each medicine comes with a different level of efficiency or “power.” Therefore, the dosage ratio of them usually differs from one another. If you end up taking the wrong dosage, it will affect your system and may lead to various health complications.
Solution: Whenever your doctor prescribes a new drug, make sure to ask them about the dosage first. Also, do not forget to let them know about your medical history too. This way, they will understand if a high dosage will affect your health or not.
Forgetting To Take Medicine On Time
Taking medicine on time can be a real challenge for anyone, especially older adults. If you end up intaking the same after or before the provided period, it will not offer any positive effect to your body anyway. Instead, it may affect your health adversely too.
Solution: Use a tracking tool or program to create a medicinal routine for your purpose. You may also use an alarm system to remind you of the time of each drug aptly. This way, it will be easier for you to get habituated to the pattern much quicker than usual.
Not Knowing About The Side Effects
Like anything else, the medications, too, have a positive and a negative side to them. Sometimes, we tend to be too dependent on them and become oblivious about the side effects as a whole. However, it’s wrong and can be negatively impactful on your body.
Solution: Whenever you are being offered a brand new medicine, make sure to ask your doctor about its side effects. Besides, you can also take the initiative and search about them on the internet. This way, you can learn if the drug will improve or deteriorate your health.
Taking Drugs With Soft Drinks Or Alcohol
Many people, these days, tend to take their medicines with alcohol or soft drinks. While this habit is okay to some extent, the aforementioned liquors can sometimes cause harmful interactions with the drug. It, in turn, affects your health massively.
Solution: Doctors always suggest their patients take drugs with clear water. However, if you want to use alcohol or soft drinks instead, be sure to ask your doctor about it. Avoid using the internet in this regard, as it might misinform you.
Crushing The Drug Without Any Knowledge
There are only a few medications available out there that can be crushed or chewed. Therefore, if you mistakenly do such with a drug that’s supposed to be taken as a whole, it won’t be effective at all.
Solution: Make sure to ask your doctor if the pill can be crushed before doing anything. Also, if such an action is possible, we would ask you to use a medical-grade tool to perform it. Finally, be sure to ask your doctor about how you should take the powered drug too!
In Conclusion
You should never follow the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when it comes to your health and medications. Always be frank with your doctor and ask them all of your queries aptly. Otherwise, you may end up making a mistake and affecting your health in the process.
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