Time for a “Medication Inventory”

Q:  I have a hard time keeping up with all the medications I take. Several of the drugs have been prescribed by other doctors making it hard to keep everything straight. I’m also taking some supplements that I think are helping, but I’m just a little worried about how they might be affecting the other medications. To top it all off, I’m spending a considerable amount of my limited income on pills and need some help sorting things out.

A:  I’ve seen patients cry during an office visit when they talk about the expense of the medications they’re taking. As best I can and when safety is not an issue, I try to prescribe the least costly medications, and where possible, eliminate some. Often, I’m not the only physician or health care provider they are seeing. Consequently, they may be getting prescription medications or supplements from a variety of practitioners, each unaware of what the other is recommending. This not only increases the expense, but the likelihood that these substances may interact with each other in ways that either reduce their effectiveness or increase their toxicity.

Once an individual is taking nine or more medications (this includes vitamins, nutritional supplements, over-the-counter medications, and herbal/natural products) the risk of an adverse interaction increases significantly. This time of the year is then apropos for doing your home medication inventory.

• Gather together every pill of any kind in your home.
• List the name of the substance, what you believe its purpose to be, who said you should take it, the last time you used it, and the cost to you for each.
• Toss out anything that you haven’t used in one year except for aspirin, acetaminophen, or other simple over-the-counter drugs.
• Collect the rest of the medications, along with your list, and bring it all to your family doctor to review and record in your chart.