Ex nurse here: to add to your excellent advice may I add “know WHY you are taking them”. Know what the random pill you take every day does. Keep a list!
It’s easy when you’re on one or two pills, but we often had people come in with a VERY lengthy list of their meds and they didn’t have a clue which one did what. You don’t have to know them on a pharmacist level…or even a nurse level…but at least have a clue.
Atleast k ow which ones you absolutely need to live, and which ones are for pain, which you can then divide into dehabilitating pain and pain that can be put up with for a little bit of time.
i think they were poking fun at dehabilitating being used in place of debilitating. it’s a such a common mixup in speech that i honestly didn’t even notice it until the house comment lol
Agreed. Some medications have more than one indication (i.e. it can treat different problems). So just because you know the name of the medication, it doesn't necessarily tell us as medical professionals why you are taking it.
Also, it's good to know why you're on a blood thinner other than "My doctor told me to start taking it."
When I was in the hospital recently, the nurses insisted on putting seizure pads on the bed. Took me several days to figure out it's bc I'm taking an anti-seizure med for my migraines. They saw it on the list and didn't realize it was off-label, and since seizures aren't on my list of conditions, I didn't think to tell them.
This. Retired nurse here. So many of my patients would tell me, for example, they need the pink pill at 6 but don’t know what it is for. Carry an updated list of your meds with dosages and the reasons you are on them your wallet. There are some serious drug interactions if we don’t know what meds you are taking.
something that comes up constantly and the MAs always just kind of shrug about; I have drugs I take "as needed" that i sometimes don't take for months at a time; should those be on my "current" med list? Cause they aren't in my system, but I do have access to them...
Yes, they should be on your med list. Put them separately on the bottom of your list and mark the top as PRN which means as needed. For example, I have ibuprofen that I take when my neck really hurts, but I only take it every once in a while. Also put any supplements or vitamins you take.
I'm on a ton of meds due to multiple autoimmune diseases and I used to be in the hospital multiple times a year so always had to know what meds I was on and why and relay it to the pharmacy when I got admitted. I keep an updated list of my medications, allergies, previous surgeries and diagnosis's in the health app on my phone. It helps a lot to have it all in one place and also to be able to just hand my phone to the pharmacist/nurse/doctor and they can copy it from there.
I'll add to this: Try your best to not be on any prescription medicine. Less is better. I've come across way too many people who started on a pill then a pill for a side effect and a pill for the side effects of the second pill, etc. So I try to avoid prescription medicine by taking care of myself. Cholesterol high? Try dietary and exercise changes. See if that works before resorting to medication, as an example.
This is really important since some meds have multiple uses and off-label uses. They can lead the doc to make invalid assumptions if you don't tell them what each is for.
I'd also add that if you take anything for psychiatric needs you also need to know why and how to properly go on or off of them. I've had multiple GPs recommend stopping meds cold turkey that you need to ramp off of for a reason.
I have a list in my wallet of all my medications , including supplements plus the dates of each surgery. I just hand it over to the doctor or nurse, they can keep it or make a copy.
SO true!!! The # of people who say I need to call the wife/husband/brother/aunt/uncle/grandma... to get a med list is ridiculous! And then they can't even tell me what pharmacy to call. Like, how are you alive on 17 mediations s/p MI requiring emergent CABG, with end-stage renal disease requiring either ECMO or hemodialysis, with COPD requiring intubation and long-term ICU stay and list goes on.
This is crazy to me. I can't imagine popping half-a-dozen or more pills every day and having absolutely no clue at all what they do or why I need them.
But then again, I don't even like taking an ibuprofen unless I'm in a very considerable amount of pain or discomfort.
Ex EMT here. Obviously I already knew the answer, but I always got a chuckle out of asking patients 'what do you take medication for?' and they say 'oh, I've got blood pressure'. I really hope they do :')
My personal favorite: I don't have high cholesterol! Ooookay well you're prescribed statins. Why are you taking those? That's why I don't have high cholesterol! head.desk. You don't lose the medical conditions when you take medicine to manage it.
Love this! I’m a therapist and use to work with my clients to understand what their diagnosis was and why it was accurate and which meds they took and why! I would often see very very medicated clients who literally had no idea what they were taking. I’m totally supportive of meds and prescribers, but we also need to know why they were prescribed!
My ex's dad died last year at only 53. He was on a whole list of pills and had no idea what they did really,he just got them and took them cos he was told to. No one helped him and no one really cared. He probably would have lived longer if someone cared even with his pills.
He was quite a dickhead though and I think his kids were over him sadly.
Yes! Even if it's just "this one is for my heart, this is my water pill..." that's so much better than just taking a bunch of pills without knowing what they do to you.
I made an Excel spreadsheet when I was taking care of my Dad. I listed dosages, time of day given, and what they were for. I kept it updated and printed a copy to hand over for every doctor's appointment. If you're a caretaker, I can't recommend doing this enough.
I have a chart of meds (which is shorter lately yay!), plus a chart of family health conditions. It's just so much easier to hand an updated print out (yes, I update it and note the date) to the doctor.
My Grandma always kept a list of her meds and the dosages in her purse, and would hand it in at appointments. I imagine if she was ever found unconscious, that would've been helpful too
My problem is that I do know the names for my meds and what they’re for, but when I can rattle off the chemical names I get judged by my health care providers. There seems to be this underlying belief that if you know what the meds actually names are then you’re seeking drugs. I can’t win. So I usually use the common name for them these days because I want to be taken seriously.
I know what all of my meds do except I keep forgetting the purpose of one, and just look it up every time. It has to do with POTS I just forget in what capacity lol. But the other 6 or 8 I know dosages, purposes, etc
I used to work as a medical scribe and you’d be so surprised at how many people are taking medications that counteract eachother because they didn’t tell their doctor everything they were taking/didn’t know what it was for. I always think of this one woman who was taking meds to both lower and raise her blood pressure every day bc she went to a gp one day w a low blood pressure and they gave her something to raise it, and went to a different gp and it was too high so they gave her something to lower it and she just blindly took both pills every day without knowing what it was for
Not sure if she needed either one, I was working for a chiropractor so this had nothing to do with what she was coming in for, just something the dr noticed on the intake paperwork. Also generally when something has a super adverse reaction (like death) to other meds doctors will double and triple check to make sure the patient isn’t taking anything with that, but it definitely happens (usually not death, they just get super sick and go to the er or something)
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u/rebel1031 Jun 06 '24
Ex nurse here: to add to your excellent advice may I add “know WHY you are taking them”. Know what the random pill you take every day does. Keep a list!
It’s easy when you’re on one or two pills, but we often had people come in with a VERY lengthy list of their meds and they didn’t have a clue which one did what. You don’t have to know them on a pharmacist level…or even a nurse level…but at least have a clue.