Pharmacist Shares How to Responsibly Take Prescription Drugs and What to Watch Out For

Prescription drugs can cause side effects or adverse reactions—understanding how they interact with other drugs, foods, and nutritional supplements is valuable.

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In today’s world, as we age, we may come across illnesses and conditions that affect the quality of our lives. Many middle-aged and elderly people suffer from one, two, or more chronic diseases and therefore are prescribed a variety of drugs on a sometimes continual basis. However, there can be adverse effects when taking more than one drug, between drugs and nutritional supplements, and drugs and certain foods.

Ms. Chen Jialing, deputy director of the Pharmacy Department of Guo General Hospital in Taiwan, shared with us her medication recommendations for chronic diseases on the Epoch Times’ “Health 1+1” program and clarified certain misunderstandings about medication common among the elderly and others.

Based on years of clinical observation, Ms. Chen pointed out that people over 50 are likely to befriend sleeping pills, analgesics, and drugs catering to the three highs (hypertension, hyperlipidemia, hyperglycemia), and cardiovascular disease-related drugs. However, there may be some adverse effects among these varieties of medicines with other drugs, and/or foods.

Ms. Chen cited that sleeping pills can relax the muscles, and antihistamine drugs taken by cold-infected, or allergy patients also possess the same muscle relaxation effects, as well as making people feel drowsy. Taking them together will greatly increase the risk of falling while walking.

Some drugs targeting cardiovascular disease are quite special. After taking the drugs, the potassium ions in the blood will increase. Therefore, these drugs are not suitable to take together with foods rich in potassium such as bananas and shiitake mushrooms. If they are eaten together over a long time, the potassium ion levels in the body will become too high, which is not conducive to heart health.

Antihyperlipidemic drugs, antihypertensive drugs, immunosuppressants, or anti-arrhythmic drugs are not recommended to be taken with pomelo or grapefruit. Pomelo and grapefruit contain furanocoumarins, which inhibit the metabolism of drugs in the liver, making them more active in the body and increasing the adverse reactions caused by the drugs.

Ms. Chen shared a clinical case of hers. A woman took an antihypertensive drug every day. One day, she suddenly fainted at home and was sent to the hospital. The doctor found that her blood pressure was too low. But why did the medicine she had been taking for some time suddenly cause her blood pressure to drop? Later, Ms. Chen learned from the patient. that she had recently started drinking grapefruit juice to relieve constipation, which happened to intensify the effect of the blood pressure-lowering drugs she was taking.

Cracking the Myth of Improper Medication Application

Ms. Chen said that over the many years she worked in the hospital, she often found among the patients a number of errors they committed in proper medication use. The following is a list of the most common ones:

1. Take the ‘better medicine’ recommended by others

Sometimes people hear about drugs that appear to work well for others and often ask their doctor to change their prescriptions. Ms. Chen said that since everyone’s constitution is different, one drug that works on a certain patient might not be directly applicable to produce the same curative effects for others. The reactions of individual medicine on different patients can sometimes be overly different. Improper application (without a doctor’s prescription) could bring about extremely dangerous results. So, it is still of prime importance that everyone should follow the doctor’s advice on prescription.

2. Believe that new is always better

Once some people hear about the availability of certain new drugs, they tend to have the preconceived idea that it must be more effective and urge their doctor to switch to the new drugs. Ms. Chen reminded us that in general, on the contrary, old drugs after being on the market for a long time, are well tested and thus should be safer. If they are showing hitherto enough efficacy, it is not recommended to replace them at will. In the event that the old drug is proven to be not effective in controlling the condition, you can then discuss the introduction of a new solution with your doctor.

3. Prescribed medicines and health products taken together

Modern-day people are accustomed to taking health care products from the concept of health preservation, but some nutritional supplements will interact with drugs, and as such will increase the difficulty of the physician’s evaluation and further medication application. For example, ginseng has the effect of lowering blood sugar. But if you eat ginseng and take hypoglycemic drugs together, your blood sugar will tend to drop. High doses of fish oil have anti-platelet aggregation effects, and if anticoagulants are taken at the same time, the risk of bleeding will become higher. Ms. Chen reminded that patients should consult their medical professional before using nutritional supplements.

What to Do if I Miss the Scheduled Drug-Taking Time?

Ms. Chen said that if you miss the scheduled time to take medicine, you can use the “half and half principle” to remedy it. For example, if you need to take medicine at 8 a.m. and 12 p.m., use the 10 a.m. midspan as the dividing line. If you miss the 8 a.m. dose, but remember any time before 10 a.m., you can still take the medicine. However, if you don’t remember until after 10 a.m., you should not take the medicine and wait until the noon dose. In all such situations, take only the normal dose of the medication, do not take double the dose to make up for missing it as that may have more risks than benefits.

Ms. Chen pointed out that in addition to following the directions on how to take a specific drug, such as the time to take it, and which foods should not be taken with it, it is also important to understand the possible side effects of the medicine.

Side Effects and Adverse Reactions of Drugs

The liver and kidney are extremely important organs. Ms. Chen said that some medicines can cause damage to the liver and kidneys. For example, painkillers, and drugs for tuberculosis may all exert a greater burden on the liver, while some antibiotics, blood pressure drugs, and chemotherapy drugs have adverse effects on the kidneys.

Ms. Chen suggested that patients who have to take these drugs over a period of time should discuss with their doctors and consider scheduling regular liver and kidney function tests, as a means to guarantee a safe passage for the patients.

What are the differences between side effects and adverse reactions to medicines?

Ms. Chen said that most drugs are chemically synthesized and are thus regarded as foreign to the human body. They can make the body feel uncomfortable with symptoms such as abdominal pain or gastrointestinal discomfort, some drugs can constrict blood vessels and cause headaches, to name just a few. All of these foreseeable discomforts are called side effects.

Adverse reactions are undesirable situations that we do not want to see at all and can cause great disruption to daily life, with symptoms such as ongoing diarrhea, blurred vision, and stomach pain. In such unusual circumstances, you need to return to your doctor to discuss prescription and/or dosage changes.

Drug Properties and Precautionary Items

Ms. Chen said that each drug is different in nature. For example, antibiotics require a certain course of treatment, and patients must complete the entire course. Some medicines might need to be taken on an empty stomach or need to be refrigerated or shaken before taking. Some medicines might change the color of urine or make feces black, and some medicines will make you feel sleepy after taking them.

For patients with chronic diseases who need to take medicine for a prolonged period, Ms. Chen offers the following four suggestions:

1. Establish a mutually cooperative relationship with your doctor and plan for regular check-ups, including but not limited to, regular blood and urine tests every six months to screen out any anomalies in the urine, and thus liver and kidney functionalities.
2. Patients with chronic diseases are often prescribed a multitude of medicines and need to take the initiative to ask their pharmacist about precautions when taking them in combination.
3. When considering supplementary health products and traditional Chinese medicine conditioning, take the initiative to discuss it with your doctor beforehand.
4. It is best to have a blood glucose tester, and/or blood pressure meter readily available at home and monitor those parameters regularly. Record the readings and provide those to the doctor as a reference. This will help the prescribing of medicine for you based on real-time situations.