Whether you’re taking supplements, vitamins, herbal preparations, over-the-counter medications, or prescription medicines, you must ensure that you’re practicing safe medication intake. If you’re not careful, you may put yourself in serious health complications like allergic secretions, infection, overdose, heart failure, stroke, or worse, death.
Physicians carefully tell you information about prescribed medicine because of the dangers of not correctly taking and storing it. It’s also why you’ll see pamphlets about different drugs and vitamins. Indeed, there are dangers to unsafe medicine intake. Thus, this page compiles a list to ensure you’re on top of your game.
Be Mindful of Medicine Interactions
A drug interaction occurs when an existing condition makes a medicine harmful to you. Interaction also occurs when a herbal or supplement affects the action of another medicine. But drug interaction can also happen when you eat food or drink alcohol or non-alcoholic beverages that interact with your medication.
So what can you do to counter this possibility? The following are good medication safety tips when it comes to this situation:
- Be transparent with yohysiciur pan: Tell them your eating habits, the medicine, supplements, herbal preparations, etc., you regularly take or are thinking of taking. Naturally, it would help if you also were transparent about any existing conditions that you may have. It’s essential for your diagnosis and the prescribed medicine.
- Read the drug facts label: The pamphlets are there to read. It usually tells you the list of medicine and food that you should avoid when taking the medicine.
- Do your research: To be extra safe, searching the Internet and reading information about your medicine from credible websites is always a good idea.
Take Medicine as Prescribed
It may seem obvious. However, some patients fail to do this. Remember that the medicine is prescribed to ensure that you get treated for your condition and symptoms. If you don’t follow your healthcare provider’s instructions, you may be in danger of side effects.
If you have questions about your medicine or didn’t follow their instructions, don’t be afraid to ask them again. This time, ask if they can put their instructions on a piece of paper so that you can return to it when you forget.
Furthermore, when taking your medicine, ensure you don’t skip or stop taking the medicine. Did you know that many antibiotics are on the market that patients should still take even if their infection stops? Be sure to speak with your physician if you’d like to stop taking the medicine for any reason.
Another important thing you should remember is that you should never take medications that weren’t prescribed to you. When physicians prescribe medicine, they look at your age, condition, and other factors. So, taking someone else’s prescribed medicine is dangerous since it’s meant for another person, not you.
Each patient is unique, just like each person is unique. A physician also considers drug interactions and allergies before prescribing a patient medicine. So, your medical problem can worsen if you take someone else’s prescription, especially when it’s a pain medication.
Also, it can lead to addiction. It can also cause other severe reactions and side effects, so be sure not to do this. Just take the trip to the doctor to save yourself from problems in the future. Remember that even the best medicines on the market won’t work if you don’t take them properly and correctly.
Store It Properly
One of the ways you can ensure that your medicine stays safe and effective is by properly storing it. You can find the information on properly storing your medicine. Some medicine has to be stored in the refrigerator, in dry places, or medicine that can’t be stored in high temperatures.
Generally, the best way to store your medicine is by keeping it in a cool and dry high place. Keep them away from hot appliances, sinks, and from your children. Children are curious beings, and if left on the counter or anywhere within their reach, they may try to take it and play with it; worse, they may put it in their mouth.
If you have children in your house, consider using child-resistant packaging. This way, they would have a hard time opening it and may just eventually give up opening it. In addition to medicine, you should keep health products like vitamins, eye drops, diaper rash creams, herbals, etc., with your medicine cabinet that’s out of reach for the children.
When storing it, try to avoid placing it in the bathroom. Many think that bathrooms are a great location, as shown in movies. However, it can get heated and humid in a bathroom, even if stored in a cabinet. A great location is your dresser drawer or kitchen cabinet.
Final Thoughts
When taking medicine, it’s always best to stick to a routine. This way, your body would remember it’s time to take your medicine. Furthermore, pill containers are also recommended to store them properly, and you can just take them when you’re on the go – perfect for traveling.
In conclusion, you should always be mindful when taking and storing your medicine. It would be such a headache to put yourself in danger due to improper medicine intake and storage.
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