How to take medications correctly?

"Health is not everything, but everything is nothing without health." Socrates

Have you ever wondered whether you take your medications correctly? Probably, almost everyone can tell about a case when timely medical assistance provided saved the life of someone close to him. In case of stroke, heart attack and other acute conditions, medications are really not just a person's friend, but his savior. Medicines contribute to our fastest recovery, improve the quality of our life and prolong it. Medicines are undoubtedly needed. In order for the medication taken to bring maximum benefit to a person and not harm him, it is necessary to follow certain rules. Correct treatment requires a competent approach to doctor's prescriptions and their conscientious execution. Otherwise, treatment may be ineffective, and “drug-friend” will turn into “drug-enemy”.

What dangers can lie in wait for us when taking medication? Basic information about this is found in the instructions for the medicinal product. The instructions must be read (preferably before buying the medicine), treat them reasonably and all the questions that have arisen should be discussed additionally with your doctor. We will consider other aspects of our topic in more detail.

The most common problems we have with medication are side effects, addiction and dependence. To avoid or reduce side effects to a minimum, the following should be considered.

Some medicines are incompatible together. This can especially occur if a person is being treated by several specialists: for example, a family doctor treats a cold, stomach treatment is received from a gastroenterologist, and veins - from a vascular surgeon. Each doctor makes his own prescriptions. Each prescribed medicine individually can “work” perfectly in its “specialty”, but together they, at best, will not work, and at worst, they can form such an explosive mixture that the patient will not know which other doctor to run to and which other medicines to take. There is only one way out of this situation: any doctor needs to be reported about ALL medications that you are currently taking.

In addition, it must be remembered that herbs, collection of herbs, bark, leaves and other parts of plants are also medicinal substances. "Herbs" are not at all as harmless as people think. They also have optimal doses, side effects; they can also have contraindications for some diseases and are incompatible with some drugs and food.

It is necessary to take into account the interaction of a particular drug with other human diseases, since there are many diseases for which the use of some drug is prohibited or significantly limited. This information can also be found in the instructions for the drug.

There are other reasons why the medicine either does not help us, or is not effective enough.

Wrong dosage of medication. Sometimes a person independently increases the dosage of the medicine for a "speedy recovery", which is completely unacceptable. Sometimes he listens to the advice of neighbors or friends. But you need to understand that drug sensitivity changes with age. The instructions always indicate the optimal doses of medication for different age groups. This information cannot be ignored. With age medicines are longer retained in the body, which can lead to intoxication. Causes of intoxication: 1) overdose and use of a large amount of drugs and 2) use of small amount of water - drugs are poorly excreted from the body.

Incorrect distribution of the time of taking the medicine. Long intervals between taking medications reduce the concentration of the drug in the blood and the effect of taking it is reduced. Therefore, medication should be distributed at regular intervals over a 24 hour period.

• If the medicine needs to be taken 2 times a day - the interval should be 12 hours (for example, 8 am and 8 pm).
• If you need to take it 3 times a day - the interval will be 8 hours. (for example, 7:00, 15:00 (3 pm) and 23:00 (11 pm)).
• If you need to take medication 4 times a day, the interval is 6 hours. (for example, 6 o'clock, 12 o'clock, 18 o'clock (6 pm) and 00:00 (12 am)).
• If the medicine is to be taken once a day, it should be taken daily at the same time.

If the doctor has prescribed several drugs, then you do not need to take them at the same time. The break between taking them should be at least 30 minutes.

If the instructions do not indicate when to take the drug and how еo wash it down, which means that the reception is allowed at any time, and it would be more correct to do this by taking it with water of room temperature.

Wrong duration of taking the medication. You can often observe the following situation: a doctor prescribed a course of treatment for a patient, but as soon as the patient feels a little better, he stops taking medications. The course of treatment should be brought to the end, since only in this case can we can count on effective

treatment. This is especially true for antibiotic treatment. Some medications are prescribed by a doctor for continuous use, regardless of the person's condition on a particular day, since the ability to live a life without a stroke, heart attack, diabetic coma and other complications depends on this. With constant intake of some drugs, you should follow the so-called "stash rule". If you started a package - buy the next one right away. Then any contingencies (for example, the drug is under re-registration, the bottle with drops was spilled, the pill pack has been lost, etc.) will not take you by surprise.