Did you know that the more medicines you take, the greater the chance you'll make a mistake in taking them? Your risk of the medicines interacting with each other increases, too. Drugs can also interact with the food you eat or the beverages you drink. Drugs can interact with chocolate, grapefruit, tea or herbal supplements like St. John's Wort.
Did you know that 40% of people in the US have prescriptions for four or more medicines? That means those people are all at risk of making a mistake and maybe winding up in the hospital.
The way we can keep ourselves safe is to become more knowledgeable and to find clever ways to keep track of what we're taking.
I learned all this last month when I attended a lecture on Medication Management given by Nursing and Home Care, located in Wilton, CT. Elaine Abrams, the nurse who gave the talk also gave us a list of really useful websites where we can learn more about drug interactions, drug safety and general medication management.
I've found a few sites myself, too. My favorite is one run by the FDA:
http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm096386.htm
Here are others:
www.consumermedsafety.com
www.drugs.com
http://nihseniorhealth.gov/takingmedicines/toc.html
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