MEDICINE TAKING RULES

No matter what your age or condition, you must be vigilant of a few fundamental rules, which you must follow while taking any medication:

Follow your physician’s advice: Always use a medicine just as your physician has prescribed. An overdose or under dose, or failure to take the medicine at the prescribed intervals, can lessen the medicine’s effectiveness.

Space medication properly: For example, if a tablet is prescribed three times a day, it has to be taken regularly at eight hourly intervals. Even a medicine that has to be taken once daily must be taken at a fixed hour.

Time the medication dose in relation to your meals: In general, medicines are best taken with meals. This helps in the absorption of medicines that are soluble in fat and safeguards against stomach irritation. This safety is especially needed with pain medicines.

Some medicines, however, are best taken at least one hour before or two hours after a meal since a full stomach may hamper their absorption. Antihistamines taken to quell allergies, ACE inhibitors like captopril, enalapril, lisinopril and quinapril which work as antihypertensives, the anti-tubercular medicine rifampicin, penicillamine usually taken for rheumatoid arthritis and Wilson’s disease, and most oral antibiotics fall under this group. In contrast, medicines that check nausea and vomiting are best taken at least half an hour before eating, while antacids work best if taken an hour after meals.

You should also check if a particular food might not harmonise with your medication. Several food-medication interactions may not only nullify the medication, but can also rarely lead to serious accidents.

There are many more rules to taking medication, which we shall dwell upon next week.

The author is a well-known columnist, Senior Specialist, Safdarjung Hospital and Professor, VM Medical College