Know Your Medicine - At Home

•- Keep your Medicine List updated.

•- Take only the medicine given to you by your physician or pharmacist. Do not share other people’s medicine.

•- Each time you take your medicine, read the label to make sure you are taking it correctly. If you have questions, call your physician or pharmacist.
• Never take medicine in the dark.

•- Do not stop taking the medicine just because you feel better unless your physician tells you to stop taking it.

•- Do not take your medicine out of one bottle and put it in another one.

-• Put all of your medicine in a place where children and pets cannot reach it.

•- If you take medicine each day, using a compartmental medication box may be helpful.

-• Do not keep medicine in the car, by the stove, or in the bathroom, since heat and dampness can affect how it works.

•- Check the date on all medicine.Throw away all medicine if it is expired or no onger needed. (If no expiration date exists on a prescription,consider it expired if you received it more than one year ago.)

•- If you feel that any medicine is making you sick or causing you pain, call your physician right away.

Know Your Medicine - Keep a Medicine List

Keep your own list of the medicines you take, including prescriptions, over-the-counter medications, vitamins and supplements. Your hospital, clinic or pharmacy may provide a form you can use; you can also find one provided by the Minnesota Alliance for Patient Safety, called My Medicine List, at www.mnpatientsafety.org or by calling (651) 641-1121. Or you can get started by just writing down a list of the different medicines you take on a blank piece of paper. When you share this list with physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other providers, it gives them the facts they need to help you stay healthy. Your Medicine List will help them make sure your mix of medications is right for you. Creating your own Medicine List— and keeping it up-to-date is a simple step that you can take to help ensure your own health and safety.

Know About Each Medicine That You Take

Questions to ask yourself include:
–- What is the name of each medicine?

–- What is it for?

–- What does it look like?

–- What time should I take it?

–- How much of it should I take each time?

–- How should I take it — should I take it with food?

–- How long should I take it?

–- What should I do if I miss a dose?

–- Are there any side effects? What should I do if I have any?

–- How should I store it?

–- it safe to take with other medicine that I am taking, including over-the-counter medicine, vitamins, or herbals?

–- What food, drink, or activities should I avoid while taking it?

Ten Safety Tips For When Taking Prescription Drugs

When you are prescribed treatment or medicine for an ailment the doctor will have considered your case carefully and decided the safest solution for you.

For those with prescriptions they may feel that the drug isn't working and consider taking a higher than recommended dosage. It can be highly dangerous to do this without consulting a doctor as can be combining different medications that the doctor isn't aware of.

With prescribed medicine it's important also to never share medicine with other people. They may have a similar condition to you but their body or condition may dictate that they take a different medication and by taking yours they may be doing more harm to themselves.

Below are 10 tips to ensure you are safe when carrying out your prescription.

1. Ask your doctor are there are any foods or drinks that should be avoided when on your medication, sometimes they can conflict or worsen your condition.

2. If you are prescribed multiple drugs or pills make sure you check when it is safe to take each one, some drugs may not react well when taken together.

3. Familiarise yourself with the name of the drug you are prescribed from your GP, and check the container when given the drugs if you go to a pharmacy, there's always a chance for human error.

4. Don't be afraid to ask your doctor about the drug you're prescribed; what does it do? What to expect from it? Also know how to identify it from other pills by their markings/shape/etc.

5. By all means visit another doctor for a second opinion but always disclose any treatment or conditions you have from another doctor so that the second one doesn't prescribe conflicting drugs or more of the same.

6. If you miss a time when you should have taken your dose do not double up at the next time to take your medicine, if it is vital not to miss the time then contact your doctor or pharmacist to find out what to do.

7. Continue the course of treatment even if you feel better, the drugs may have eradicated the noticeable symptoms but will still be working away behind the scenes to fully treat your problem.

8. When on prescription drugs try to avoid alcohol all together, many prescribed drugs do not mix well with alcohol and can be fatal, consult with your doctor as to whether you can consume alcohol whilst on your course of medication.

9. Use a pill case/organiser to help remind you of when to take various pills with their correct dosage too. Set alarms on your watch or computer to remind you or keep a diary.

10. When you have finished your treatment do not flush remaining drugs down the toilet, certain drugs won't be filtered out by water treatment processes. Go to your doctor or pharmacist for advice on responsibly disposing of surplus medication.

Phil Adams-Wright is an Internet technologist who writes on a variety of topics including prescriptions and pharmacy related issues.

Medicines best taken with food and/or drink

Every good thing in life has its negative sizes and taking drugs without food or drinks is one of the negative sides to drugs. Majority of medicines that I know should be taken after a meal or a drink, while there are some that might not cause any problems for a patient if taken without meals but like they say prevention is better than sacrifices, it is better to be safe than sorry. So to be on a safer size, I will strongly advise that you take all drugs after a meal or a drink.
Medicines are very good in body maintenance and preservations. We take medicines to cure what ever sickness we suffer from. Medicines have helped prevent people from premature death Like in Africa, millions of people were dyeing from malaria until malaria drugs or medicines were produced. Now when anyone here gets malaria, the doctor gives you an anti- malaria medicine and ever since the invention of these drugs less and lesser people die from malaria.

These days only if you have no access to this anti-malaria drugs will you die if not no one dies from malaria because the drugs are cheap and affordable. In essence, drugs are very useful and helpful to us but it has to be taken with meals or strong drinks (like malt drinks). It is generally known that before you take any form or type of medicine you should have food or a strong drink in your Tommy. It has been medically proven that taking drugs with out food could be very dangerous to ones health. It can cause complications for a patient; one could collapse or even die if immediate attention is not given.

I have even seen instances were people were rushed to the hospital for taking drugs without food or drinks. Some are even operated upon, in other to remove this drugs from there system, while some who were not lucky enough died on there way to the hospital. So this goes to tell you how deadly it can be taking drugs without food or drinks in your stomach.

Doctors and scientists make us understand that the chemical components of these medicines are very strong and would need meals as a supporting tool to help in your body treatment. It is overly known that medicines taken with food or drinks work better and fast to curing patients. Medicines should also not be taking without a doctor's prescription because self medication is also very deadly.

Medicines come in various forms like capsules, powder forms, tablets, liquid forms and some herbs are said to be good medicines. In fact before the invention of the present forms of drugs, we made use of herbs and they were very effective. Herbs are known to be medicinal in nature.

Let's also understand that not all medicines are meant to be taken after food as there is an adage which states that "laughter is the best medicine" and definitely you don't need food or drinks for you to laugh.