In our daily life, we often use some drugs incorrectly, and the efficacy and function of the drugs cannot be fully utilized by the patients, resulting in some adverse consequences and even life-threatening.
According to statistics, nearly 5 million people are hospitalized every year due to the wrong way of taking medication, and 200,000 of them even die because of it; about 500,000 of the 5 million deaf children are deaf due to the wrong use of medication every year. In addition, there are many other dangers caused by the wrong way to take medication, and they happen all around us all the time. The following is a description of common wrong methods of taking medication.
Mistake 1: Simply taking medication with three meals a day
Because it is simply written on the drug instructions that “take three times a day, before meals”, you take your medication before three meals every day. Wrong! The “three times a day” rule was developed by pharmacologists based on the metabolic rate of drugs in the human body and the law of changes in blood concentration, dividing the day into three sections on average and taking the drug every 8 hours. Only by taking the medication on time can the stable blood concentration (the concentration of the drug in the blood) in the body be guaranteed and the therapeutic effect be achieved. If all three doses are scheduled during the day, the blood concentration will be too high during the day, bringing danger to the human body; while the night does not reach the therapeutic concentration.
”Take before meals” means that this drug needs to be taken on an empty stomach (1 hour before or 2 hours after meals) to facilitate absorption. If you eat a large snack just before eating, then “before meals” is not the same as “fasting”. And “after meals” refers to a full stomach (half an hour after a meal) when taking drugs, the use of food to reduce drug stimulation of the stomach and intestines or to promote the absorption of drugs in the stomach and intestines. Likewise, if you have eaten a lot of snacks just before a meal, you do not have to be dogmatic and wait until after the meal to take the medication.
The following are some common drugs that need to be taken on an empty or full stomach.
1.Empty stomach : ampicillin, penicillin G, amoxicillin, erythromycin, rifampicin, reserpine, gastropin, most Chinese medicine or proprietary Chinese medicine, etc.
2.Full stomach ： Penicillin V potassium, aspirin, valium, cotrimoxazole, sulfapyridine, ciprofloxacin, paracetamol, pepsin to help digestion, etc.
Mistake two: lying down to take medicine
If you take your medication lying down, it is easy for the medication to adhere to the esophageal wall. It not only affects the efficacy but also may stimulate the esophagus and cause coughing or local inflammation; in serious cases, it may even damage the esophageal wall and lay the hidden worry of esophageal cancer. Therefore, it is better to take medicine in a sitting or standing position.
Mistake 3: Dry swallowing medicine
Some people swallow drugs dry without drinking water in order to save time, which is also very dangerous. On the one hand, may be the same as lying down to take drugs damage the esophagus, or even more serious; on the other hand, there is not enough water to help dissolve, some drugs are easy to form stones in the body, such as cotrimoxazole and other sulfonamides.
Mistake four: break to eat or eat after dissolving with water
Some people “swallow” their own medicine or fear that children choke, they take it upon themselves to break the tablets or dissolve them in water before taking, which not only affects the efficacy of the drug will also increase the adverse reactions. Take aspirin enteric tablets for example, after breaking up without the protection of enteric coating, the drug can not safely reach the intestine, in the stomach is dissolved, not only can not play a therapeutic effect, but also stimulate the gastric mucosa. Dissolving the drug in water before taking it has the same adverse effect. Therefore, do not do this unless specifically ordered by your doctor or written in the drug’s instructions.
However, it is different when taking proprietary Chinese medicines. For example, for the common large pills, you should use a clean knife or your hands to divide the pills into smaller pieces and then take them with warm boiled water. To speed up the effect of the medicine, you can also use a little warm water to mash the pills into a thin paste and then take it with warm boiled water.
Mistake 5: Using drinks to deliver medicine
The correct method is to use plain water with moderate temperature to deliver the medicine. Because milk, juice, tea, cola and other beverages can interact with drugs, which may affect the efficacy and even lead to danger.
For example, the use of juice or acidic beverages to deliver compound aspirin and other antipyretic analgesics and flavopiridol, acetylspiramycin and other sugar-coated antibiotics, will accelerate the dissolution of drugs, damage the gastric mucosa, and in severe cases can lead to bleeding of the gastric mucosa; delivery of aluminum hydroxide and other alkaline gastroparesis drugs, acid-base neutralization will make the drug completely ineffective; delivery of cotrimoxazole and other sulfonamides, it reduces the solubility of drugs, causing urinary tract stones. With tea for the treatment of anemia iron, tea tannic acid will be combined with iron, weakening the efficacy. However, the following special circumstances instead help to play the drug effect.
1. Green tea water. Take antihypertensive and diuretic western medicine. The actual tannic acid will not be able to be combined with the tannins.
2. Hot ginger soup: Take Chinese medicines such as Huo Xiang Zheng Qi Tablet and Xiang Sha Yang Gastric Pill. ● Hot rice porridge Deliver Chinese patent medicines for regulating the spleen and stomach.
Mistake 6: Drinking medicine to the bottle
This is especially seen in drinking syrup or combination. On the one hand, it is easy to contaminate the medicine and accelerate its deterioration; on the other hand, you cannot accurately control the amount of medicine you take, which will either fail to achieve the efficacy of the medicine or increase the side effects by taking too much.
Mistake 7: Taking multiple drugs together
The interaction between drugs is difficult to avoid, and can even cause some unexpected trouble.
1, the cause of unintended pregnancy may not be the omission of birth control pills, but in taking birth control pills at the same time taking anti-tuberculosis drugs or drugs to prevent cerebral hemorrhage, resulting in contraceptive pill failure.
2, the symptoms of depression is not necessarily not controlled by the efficacy of drugs or individual differences, but while taking drugs for depression and at the same time taking anti-allergy drugs.
3, the cause of the failure of drugs to treat heart disease may be those used to treat cough licorice tablets.
4, in the supplementation of thyroxine for hypothyroidism at the same time if and magnesium, then the thyroxine will be wasted.
But it has to be admitted that few physicians ask patients which medications they are taking when they give us a prescription, or when pharmacists are giving medications. Therefore, if you suspect that you are taking or about to take several drugs may produce adverse interactions, must take the initiative to consult with the physician or pharmacist, but do not remember not to arbitrarily stop or change the medication on their own.
Mistake eight: drinking too much water
Drinking too much water after taking medication is not okay? Yes, because this will dilute the stomach acid, which is not conducive to the dissolution and absorption of drugs. Generally speaking, 1 small glass of warm water is enough to deliver solid medication. For special preparations like syrup, especially cough syrup, the drug is needed to cover the surface of the inflamed pharyngeal mucosa and form a protective film to reduce the mucosal inflammatory response, block irritation and relieve coughing, so it is recommended not to drink water within 5 minutes after drinking the syrup.
Mistake 9: Exercise immediately after taking medication
Just like after eating, you should not exercise immediately after taking medication. This is because it generally takes 30 to 60 minutes for a drug to be dissolved and absorbed by the stomach and intestines, during which time sufficient blood is needed to participate in circulation. And immediately exercise will lead to insufficient blood supply to the stomach and intestines and other organs, the effect of drug absorption will naturally be greatly reduced.
Mistake 10: Not paying attention to dietary restrictions during medication
It is not only Chinese medicine that is concerned about dietary contraindications, but also western medicine. Unreasonable diet during medication can reduce the effectiveness of the drug, and in serious cases, it can be life-threatening.
The following provides some common drugs during the taking of the diet taboos
1, blood pressure drugs, anti-angina drugs avoid drinking grapefruit juice, avoid eating food containing high salt during the use. Because the grapefruit juice in the naringin can affect the role of certain enzymes in the liver, and this enzyme is precisely related to the metabolism of blood pressure and anti-angina drugs. In the treatment of angina pectoris, for example, a cup of grapefruit juice can make the body’s blood concentration rise 134%, equivalent to taking more than two times the drug, a significant overdose, greatly increasing the side effects. The salt will cause an increase in blood pressure, reducing the effectiveness of antihypertensive drugs, while aggravating the degree of angina.
2, the treatment of headache drugs Avoid drinking alcohol during use. Because alcohol needs to be oxidized into acetaldehyde after entering the body, and then further oxidized into acetic acid to metabolize. Such drugs will prevent the oxidation of acetaldehyde to acetic acid, resulting in the accumulation of acetaldehyde in the body and aggravating the headache symptoms. At the same time, alcohol is also easy to make people drowsy, will overlap with the effects of most of these drugs containing barbiturates.
3, antidepressants, dysentery, anti-tuberculosis drugs, anti-tumor drugs avoid eating cheese, bananas, avocados, soy milk, beer and other foods containing more tyramine.
The mechanism of action of antidepressants is to inhibit the body’s monoamine oxidase (MAO). However, this MAO inhibitor easily reacts with tyramine to produce norepinephrine, and gathering too much will make the blood pressure rise abnormally, showing nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, dyspnea, dizziness, headache and other adverse symptoms, and the purpose of antidepressants cannot be accomplished. Dysentery, some anti-tuberculosis drugs (such as Remifent, etc.) and anti-tumor drugs (such as methylbenzylhydrazine, etc.) also contain MAO inhibitors, encountering food containing tyramine, are prone to trouble.
4, bitter stomachic drugs, digestive aids, Chinese medicine
Avoid eating sugar or sweet food. Because bitter stomachic and digestive drugs mainly through the stimulation of peripheral nerves, reflexive secretion of saliva, gastric juice and other digestive juices, in order to achieve the role of digestion, appetite. Sugar or sweet food will cover up the bitter taste and reduce the effectiveness of the medicine. For Chinese medicine, sugar or sweets also tend to react with many components of the drug, reducing the content of the active ingredients and reducing the effectiveness of the medicine.
5. Calcium supplements Avoid eating spinach, tea, almonds, etc., which are rich in oxalic acid. Because oxalic acid in the small intestine will combine with calcium, producing insoluble substances that can not be absorbed, while preventing the absorption of calcium may also form stones.
6, iron supplements Avoid eating too much animal and vegetable fats. Because fats and oils will inhibit the secretion of gastric acid, affecting the transformation of trivalent iron ions into divalent iron ions, which is not conducive to the absorption of iron in the gastrointestinal tract, weakening the effect of iron supplementation and blood.
7, iodine supplements Avoid spinach, peaches, pears, etc. The current drugs in the volume, efficacy, taste, shape, packaging compared to the previous have been greatly improved, but the instructions on the method of administration is always the 8 words: once x tablets, x times a day, or add a sentence – take before meals. Not to mention that it is much simpler than the introduction of side effects alone.
If the way and time is not correct, and the combination with the diet is not reasonable, not only is it not conducive to the effectiveness of the medicine, but it may also lead to various unexpected dangers. In fact, the method of taking drugs is an important issue that requires as much attention as the side effects of drugs, and I hope that the relevant pharmaceutical departments will pay attention to this so that the majority of patients can use drugs in a clear manner.