Odds are that as a person ages, he or she will need to take medications and the number of the medications may increase as the age increases. A thorough understanding of medications can help maximize the benefits while avoiding side effects or additional problems. Be sure to ask your pharmacist the following questions:
- What is the medicine supposed to do?
- Understand when the desired effects will occur and contact your doctor if it is not working.
- How long will it take for it to start working?
- How should I use the medicine?
- Know whether to take on an empty stomach or with meals.
- Special instructions (Ex/ rinsing your mouth after a steroid inhaler to avoid thrush and hoarseness).
- Avoiding certain foods or alcohol.
- Ex/ Grapefruit juice can cause too much or too little of a drug to enter your body (Some statins to lower cholesterol, blood pressure, antiarrhythmics, antihistamines).
- What side effects should I watch for?
- Know what to do if they occur and how to lessen the side effects (Ex/ eating with NSAIDS to avoid stomach problems).
- Is this medication safe to take with my other medications?
- Are there any interactions that would contraindicate taking them together?
- Be sure to inform the doctor of your supplements as well (Drug interaction checker: https://reference.medscape.com/drug-interactionchecker ).
