If you've reached a certain age, there's a good chance you take more than one medication. And that can sometimes add up to trouble. But there is a way to make sure you're taking just what the doctor ordered.
Pharmacist Christina Guthenberg does her best to make sure customers know how to take their medication, "There's a lot of barriers for patients to taking their medication correctly, but it definitely, I would say, is a problem that affects elderly people a lot more because they're taking so many medications."
Things like tiny print, and deciphering what "take twice a day" actually means, can all add up to non-compliance. But there are things you can do to make sure you're not crossing the fine line between health and harm. Start in your own home and toss expired medications - don't use them.
"Seven-percent of the patients that we've seen have been taking expired medications," says Guthenberg.
Next, explore the medscape drug interaction checker. List your medications, press a button, and see how you're doing. And don't forget about your pharmacist. You can attend a drug checking event or have a private meeting. Just remember to bring everything you've got. "We're talking about every medication that they take, so it could be a prescription, it could be a non-prescription, and then we usually like to ask them about even supplements they might take," says Guthenberg.
A consultation was just what Leah Schwoyer needed, when a new drug was added to her regimen, "I was just put on another blood pressure medication, and I had some questions about when to take it."
After looking over her prescriptions and over-the-counter meds, it turned out that timing her calcium was important.
Click on the following link to get to the drug interaction checker http://www.medscape.com/druginfo/druginterchecker
