People in the United States are highly medicated. In fact, research details that 25% of older Americans take at least five prescription medications to treat their chronic health conditions. This comes with a slew of different challenges, as it can be quite difficult to keep track of all the different medications. If this is something that you’re currently dealing with, then we’ve got something that will help you out. Here are three tips that will help you manage taking multiple medications.
Understand How Your Medicine Interact
One of the biggest issues that come with taking multiple medications is the interactions that the different medicines may have with each other. In fact, experts detail that the risk for potential side effects that can lead to emergency room visits and hospitalizations rises as the number of medications you take increases. This is why you’ll want to do all you can to understand how your medicine interacts with each other.
The best way to do this would be to fully disclose all the medicine that you’re taking with your doctors. This will help them prescribe medicine that is appropriate to take with the other prescribed medicine that you are already taking. While this change may seem trivial, you’re sure to see results almost immediately when it comes to reducing the number of side effects that you may be experiencing.
Get Your Medicine From One Pharmacy
In relation to the previous tip, we also recommend getting your prescriptions filled from one pharmacy. Not only will this make things infinitely more convenient but it also allows the pharmacy to make better recommendations regarding the medicine that you should be taking.
Using one pharmacy means that all your medication records will be in one place. This will be useful when it comes to reducing the risk and severity of side effects as negative drug interactions will be kept to a minimum. Having a good relationship with your pharmacist also opens up the lines of communication. This makes you more likely to communicate any issues you may be having with your medication so that you can resolve them with the help of trained medical professionals.
Use a Pill Dispenser or a Reminder System
Lastly, being organized and maintaining order is key when it comes to managing different medications. Now, there are a few ways that you can go about doing this.
You can make use of a pill dispenser to simplify the entire process. All you’ll need to do is to use the dispenser at the scheduled times and it will give you all the mediation that you need. Granted, you will still need to set this up but it will help you keep track of all the medicine that you’ve taken for the day.
If you’re looking for a more comprehensive solution, our medicine tracker app is just what you need. MedManage can help you stay on top of the different medications that you have to take by allowing you to create a medication list and log your prescriptions.
Conclusion
We hope these tips prove to be useful when it comes to helping you manage all the different medications that you are currently taking. While it may be difficult, it’s not something that you won’t be able to handle as long as you plan things out and use all the tools that you have at your disposal.
If you are looking for the best medication tracker app to help you with medication management, look no further than MedManage. Our app is a cloud-based medication management system for patients and caregivers. It helps in remembering, storing, and sharing your medication status and history. Download yours today!