The way you take your medication is an important issue that requires as much attention as the side effects of the medication. If the way and time is not correct, and the diet does not match well, not only is it not conducive to the effectiveness of the medicine, but it may also lead to various dangers that you did not expect.
The following are ten common mistakes in taking medication.
Mistake 1: Simply taking medication with three meals a day
Because the drug instructions simply say “three times a day, take before meals”, so you take your medication every day before three meals on time. Then this is the wrong way to take medication. The “three times a day” rule was established by pharmacologists based on experiments to determine the metabolic rate of drugs in the human body, meaning that the 24-hour day is divided into three equal segments, and drugs are taken 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, which will bring danger to the human body, while the treatment concentration will not be reached at night. Liu Botao, National Pain Center, China-Japan Friendship Hospital
”Taking the drug before meals” means that it needs to be taken on an empty stomach (1 hour before or 2 hours after a meal) to facilitate absorption. If you eat a large snack just before eating, then “before meal” is not the same as “on an empty stomach”. And “taking after meals” means taking the drug on a full stomach (half an hour after a meal), using food to reduce the stimulation of the drug to the stomach and intestines or to promote the absorption of the drug by 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 medications that need to be taken on an empty or full stomach.
Fasting: ampicillin, penicillin G, amoxicillin, erythromycin, rifampicin, reserpine, gastropin, most Chinese medicines or proprietary Chinese medicines, etc.
Full stomach: penicillin V potassium, aspirin, valium, cotrimoxazole, sulfapyridine, ciprofloxacin, paracetamol, pepsin to help digestion, etc.
Mistake two: lying down to take drugs
Take the medicine lying down, the drug is easy 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 medication 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, it may damage the esophagus as lying down to take drugs, 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 up and eat or dissolve in water and eat
Some people “swallow” their own medicine or fear that children choke, they take it upon themselves to break the drug or dissolve it in water before taking, which not only affects the efficacy of the drug will also increase the adverse reactions.
In the case of aspirin enteric tablets, for example, after breaking the drug without the protection of the enteric coating 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 also has the same adverse effect. Therefore, do not do this unless specifically ordered by your doctor or stated 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 moderate temperature of cold water 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.
Mistake six: drinking medicine to the mouth of the bottle
This situation is particularly common in drinking syrup or combination. On the one hand, it is easy to contaminate the liquid and accelerate its deterioration; on the other hand, it is not possible to accurately control the amount of medicine ingested, which either fails to achieve the effectiveness of the medicine or increases the side effects of overdose.
Mistake 7: Taking multiple drugs together
If you take multiple drugs together, it is difficult to avoid the interaction between drugs, and even cause some trouble that you did not expect.
An unplanned pregnancy may not be caused by missing the pill, but by taking anti-tuberculosis medication or medication to prevent a cerebral hemorrhage at the same time as the pill, making it ineffective. Uncontrolled symptoms of depression are also not necessarily due to ineffective medication or individual differences, but to taking anti-allergy medication at the same time as medication for depression. The cause of the failure of drugs to treat heart disease may be those used to treat cough licorice tablets, in the supplementation of thyroxine to treat low thyroid at the same time if the magnesium supplement, then the thyroxine will be wasted.
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 of drug absorption. Generally 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 the 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 gastrointestinal organs and other organs, the absorption effect of the drug is naturally greatly reduced.
Mistake 10: Not paying attention to dietary restrictions during medication
Not only Chinese medicine is concerned about dietary restrictions, Western medicine is also the same. Irrational diet during medication can reduce the effectiveness of the drug, and in serious cases, it can be life-threatening.
The following are some of the common dietary contraindications for taking drugs.
Anti-blood pressure drugs, anti-angina drugs during the avoid drinking grapefruit juice, avoid eating food containing high salt. 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 and aggravating the degree of angina.
Avoid drinking alcohol while taking headache medication. Because alcohol needs to be oxidized into acetaldehyde after entering the body, and then further oxidized into acetic acid and metabolized. Such drugs will prevent the oxidation of acetaldehyde to acetic acid, resulting in the accumulation of acetaldehyde in the body and aggravating headache symptoms. Also, alcohol tends to make people drowsy, which can overlap with the effects of barbiturates, which are mostly contained in these drugs.
Antidepressants, dysentery, anti-tuberculosis drugs, anti-tumor drugs avoid eating cheese, bananas, avocado, soy milk, beer and other foods containing more tyramine. The mechanism of action of antidepressants is to inhibit the monoamine oxidase (MAO) in the body. 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 can not be accomplished. Dysentery, some anti-tuberculosis drugs (such as Remifentan, etc.) and anti-tumor drugs (such as methylbenzylhydrazine, etc.) also contain MAO inhibitors, which are prone to trouble when they come across foods containing tyramine.
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 promotion. 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 ingredients in the drug, reducing the content of active ingredients and reducing the effectiveness of the medicine.
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, resulting in insoluble substances that can not be absorbed, while preventing the absorption of calcium may also form stones. 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. Iodine supplements avoid spinach, peaches, pears, etc. Because these foods will prevent iodine from entering the thyroid gland. In conclusion, as the saying goes, “every medicine has three poisons”, so you should be extra cautious when taking drugs in order to play the role of the drug and avoid its adverse effects.