Saturday, April 23, 2011

Surviving your Medicines and Prescriptions

First of all understanding that almost all Pharmaceuticals are literally "Poison" to a physical body, the less you can get away with taking the better off you might be. So, I try to never take pain killers unless I am almost dying. But that's just me.

Note: I am not a physician or nurse nor am I trying to represent myself as one. I am simply trying to share how I survive and stay alive while taking a prescription and what I have found to do to stay alive an healthy regarding all this.

First of all, the less types of medicines that you are taking the less chance there is that a medicine conflict will harm you or kill you. This is a given. Second, what I do to keep from being harmed by any medicine I have to take (I'm only taking Armour Thyroid from Canada now). Since I have a hypothyroid condition that wasn't diagnosed until I was 58 (I"m now almost 63) I went through a lot of suffering until it was properly diagnosed and so I could begin taking some medicine. However, it was a long road for me to get to armour thyroid that was then made in the U.S.  There is presently no good medicine for hypothyroidism presently made or sold in the U.S.  I cannot answer properly why this is. Bribes maybe? Who knows? Anyway, if you want to be really happy with your medicine if you have hypothyroidism, likely the best thing you will get is from Canada. (I use CanadaDrug.com) If you go there ask for Armour Thyroid at the dose you presently are using (but you need a doctor's prescription for this medicine even if your doctor is in the U.S.).

So, when you received you prescription from the U.S. or Canada (or wherever you live on earth). It is good to check to make sure they gave you what you want. Compare the tablets to what you were taking before that was working for you. Put on your glasses or get a magnifying glass to make sure your pills are the same shape, have the same imprint and are the same size and smell the same before you take any. After comparing your new medicine to your old one (I was once given the wrong medicine that might have killed me had I taken it) so I always check in this way so I can stay alive. So after I compare the old and new medicine to make sure they are the exactly the same size, exactly the right shape and have exactly the same thing imprinted on them, I begin to count them to make sure I was given the correct amount for my money.

The way I do it is to get a cutting board and a knife. I carefully pour out about 20 to 50 of my prescription tablets and then move them in groups of 5 with the sharp edge of my knife straight down lightly scraping the board. After I assemble 5 groups of 5 tablets I then have 25 tablets counted. So I just keep creating groups of 25 by lines of 5 (2 groups 50, 4 groups 100, 8 groups 200). After I make sure I have been given the correct amount and I'm sure it is the right medicine at the right dose I put 50 in an empty container so I don't run out before I reorder. I put 150 in another bottle to put in my daily (by the day)segmented 7 day container so I don't double dose and create problems for myself or forget to take a dose and get confused whether I took a dose that day or not. Since I can't eat for about 1 hour after taking my medicine I try to remember to take it about 4:30 Am in the morning when I usually get up to go to the bathroom. That way when I finally wake up sometime between 7 and 10 or 11 I can eat right away some breakfast or not as is my wish.

I hope my checking and methodology is helpful to you. Getting the wrong medicine or the right medicine at the wrong dose can ruin your whole day or send you the the hospital or just kill you right there on the spot. So being efficient about how you take your medicines and making sure it is the right stuff will keep you healthy and alive and happy.

I remember one time that I was given the wrong dose of blood thinner when I was taking Ace inhibitors because of a heart virus I had in 1999.  All I could do was to lay on the floor near unconsciousness for about 5 hours until the medicine wore off. You don't want something like this to happen to you. So, being efficient will keep you both alive and healthy and living a long happy life.

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