Not Knowing What It’s For
We all trust our doctors in helping us feel better by the medications that they’re giving us. However, you should take the time to be aware of what each drug is for. Having a clear understanding of the condition that you have and the medication that’s being used to treat it will give you a better understanding about its importance. Read the leaflets and labels too, there might be counterindications that you failed to mention to your doctor such as pregnancy, other medications that you’ve taken previously or currently taking.
Not Knowing The Names
This is very basic but a lot of us fail to remember the medications that we’re taking. Worst case scenario, if there is a life and death emergency and you have no idea about the generic names or specific brand that you’re taking, any medical practitioner may end up giving you the wrong one. This can be disastrous if you have allergies to certain generics and brands. If by any chance that you forget your medications at home and the nearest access is a pharmacy, if you don’t know what you’re taking, how can you even purchase it?
Not Taking It Correctly
This seems very easy to take note of, but you’d be surprised at how many people could actually make a mistake on this one. Let’s just say you got a little absent minded and the doctor told you to chew your medications, yet you didn’t chew it because you failed to hear that part. Some medications that are in tablet forms are meant to be crushed, not taken as a whole. Most of the time, we just assume that tablets are just consumed as is but that’s not the case. Worst case scenario, you were told to measure by a tablespoon and you took it with a teaspoon. As simple as it sounds, it doesn’t seem so simple after all.
Not Following the Prescribed Full Course
Okay, so you probably feel better after 3 days of taking your antibiotics. It’s a very expensive one and you just suddenly decided to stop taking it since you feel cured already. Don’t ever do that especially with antibiotics. It could lead to severe consequences such as being immune to that medication in the future. It can even cause bacterias and viruses to mutate and your current illness could get worse.
Not Storing Your Medications Correctly
Some medications can require certain temperatures in order to not lose potency. Others can be sensitive to light, humidity, cold or warmth. Always read the labels so you know how to store them correctly. It would be a waste of money for a prescription medication to go to waste just because you failed to store it correctly.
I’m guilty of doing some of this. Especially the one with stopping the medications abruptly. As soon as I’m feeling better, I just don’t want to spend more on medication.
I always put a small note in my bag with all the medications I’m taking. I’m doing that in case of emergency.
Medications should really be taken seriously. You can’t just take it whenever you want or however you want. That’s dangerous.?
Exactly, I don’t understand why other people just do whatever they like.
Instructions for taking antibiotics should be strictly followed. I got sick repeatedly before because I failed to take it the way it was prescribed. Instead of getting better, I just got worse.
Even with vitamins, you really have to store it properly. My entire bottle of vitamin C’s oxidized and I haven’t even finished half of the bottle.
My granpa thinks his medication is expensive so he takes them twice a day instead of three. We always tell him not to but he insists!☹️
That’s not good, especially for his age. He needs all those meds.
Having a lot of medications causes us to be forgetful. You think you’ve taken it even though you still haven’t. It’s nice to have medicine organizers for that.
Not taking your medicine properly can lead to a lot of damage to your body. I’ve also read about a virus and bacterial mutations because of that.
Most of the time, it’s the last few days course of my meds that I skip. I didn’t know it was this bad.
Medicines are so expensive and nobody really wants to spend their hard earned money on medications because they’re sick. Yet, we have no choice but to do it. So it’s best to just take the medication as prescribed to avoid further complications. It’s a simple instruction that needs to be followed. Why not just do it?
It’s important to know all your medications and be mindful of taking it! What happened to me before was that there were two antibiotics on my desk that were under the same brand so it had the same packaging, just with different hues of blue. But the thing is, I didn’t bother reading the label and I ended up drinking antibiotic A for 2 days, drank the next 3 doses of antibiotic B. I’m not even sure how I even got better anymore because apparently, I was taking two different antibiotics for the entire week!
You have to take note of the change of weather when you’re storing your medications. I also do a monthly or yearly cleaning of my medicine cabinet. I rarely check expiration labels and I don’t want to end up consuming expired aspirins or something.
I can’t believe that there are people out there who would purchase medications and not take it properly. It’s really unsafe and it’s not even practical. If you think you’re saving money, I don’t think so.
In my defense, it’s not being done on purpose sometimes.
It’s so easy to interchange your medications especially when you’re taking a lot. I even list down my schedule of medications and tick them out after I’ve taken the dose. If you’re forgetful, try to compensate by listing them down or scheduling them.