What are the top ten taboos for the elderly to take medicine?

In our daily life, we have all heard the phrase "three drugs are toxic". Because, in life, many old people always take medicine according to their own experience and habits, but they don't know that there is a great danger hidden in it, and they mistakenly eat medicine as poison. As family members, we must carefully understand the matters that the elderly should pay attention to when taking medicine. We must always pay attention to the medication habits of the elderly and not let them take medicine in their own way. So what problems should the elderly pay attention to when taking medicine?

What are the top ten taboos for the elderly to take medicine?

Take medicine according to your own experience

Maybe it's "a long illness", maybe it's accumulated some common sense of medication. Many elderly people think that as long as they take medicine according to their own discomfort or medical theory, they can go to the pharmacy to fill their own prescriptions. Some people even go to the hospital to call the doctor to prescribe medicine. In fact, this is inappropriate. For common diseases such as colds, self-medication is not bad, but as a doctor, I take medicine for any disease by experience, which will delay my illness. Therefore, it is best for doctors to diagnose and prescribe the right medicine.

Take your medicine and follow the advertisement.

Old people are easily deceived by advertisements, easy to listen to others' introductions, and regard buying medicines, health food and health equipment as a panacea for the body. I have a neighbor who suffers from cataract. I saw in an advertisement that the pure Chinese medicine preparation produced by a pharmaceutical factory can effectively reverse cataract, so I followed the map and ordered thousands of dollars of so-called "medicine". Results After two courses of treatment, there was no effect. Later, the doctor told him that this "medicine" had no drug approval number at all.

Another neighbor was superstitious about the dealer's propaganda, and went to a free experience hall of medical devices every day to experience it. He listened to the propaganda that he could cure all diseases, bought back expensive warm physiotherapy and many health care products for treating hypertension, and stopped using antihypertensive drugs, resulting in a sudden increase in blood pressure and a stroke.

Take the medicine if you feel a little sick.

Sometimes you don't need to see a doctor if you are unwell, because these discomforts are degenerative changes of organs and tissues caused by age, which are usually irreversible. Taking drugs is not only ineffective, but also easy to lead to adverse drug reactions. Therefore, the elderly should not take medicine immediately because they are slightly unwell. Even if they want to take medicine, they should go to the hospital for treatment.

New medicine is expensive, good medicine is good.

Many elderly people think that the more expensive the medicine, the better the curative effect. In fact, the price of drugs is not necessarily related to the curative effect. The price of drugs is not determined by the curative effect of drugs on a certain disease, but by factors such as raw material cost, technological process and sales link. Therefore, if there are no contraindications or adverse reactions when using old drugs, you can choose cheap old drugs. In fact, some expensive new drugs have not been on the market for a long time, doctors still lack clinical experience, and pharmacists lack medication experience, so patients cannot rely on new drugs for treatment.

Many pharmacies go to buy medicine.

Some elderly people find it troublesome to register, so they go to the drugstore to buy medicine. Others like to buy medicines in different pharmacies, or choose varieties or compare prices. However, when buying drugs, especially when buying a variety of drugs, it is best to fix them in pharmacies. In this way, the pharmacist can notice whether there may be side effects between the drugs you buy. If you go to many pharmacies to buy drugs, pharmacists may ignore the interaction between drugs because they don't see the list of all the drugs to buy.

Take multiple drugs together.

Aunt Zhang suffers from hypertension, coronary heart disease, diabetes and osteoporosis, and needs to take more than 20 kinds of drugs every day. So many drugs need to be taken before meals, while others need to be taken after meals. Aunt Zhang faces so many medicines. For convenience, it is more important not to miss them. Every time, she puts the medicine she needs to take in the medicine box and takes it together after meals. In fact, taking medicine like Aunt Zhang will have bad consequences. Because when drugs are mixed, one drug may resist the efficacy of another drug. Therefore, some drugs need to be taken at intervals.

In addition, some drugs must be taken at the prescribed time, and if they do not meet the requirements, the drugs will not have the due therapeutic effect. For example, glibenclamide for diabetes should be taken half an hour before meals, metformin should be taken after meals, and Baipingping should be taken at the first meal. Other drugs also have regulations on taking time before meals, after meals, on an empty stomach and before going to bed.

No medication before physical examination

Some elderly people stop taking drugs that must be taken every day before physical examination to truly reflect their physical health. There is an old Wang Man who suffers from high blood pressure. He didn't take antihypertensive drugs on the day of physical examination and the day before. At the end of the physical examination, he felt very dizzy. Fortunately, a doctor came to the side for emergency rescue and called the 120 ambulance to go to the hospital, which saved Wang Laobo's life from cerebral hemorrhage. Therefore, drugs that must be taken every day cannot be stopped at will without a doctor's instruction.

Do not take medicine as required

Old people sometimes have a fear of taking drugs, thinking that the dosage or variety of drugs is harmful to health, so they will reduce the dosage or variety of drugs themselves, and some old people will stop taking drugs according to their physical conditions. In fact, there are compliance problems with medication. Some drugs should not be reduced or stopped at will, otherwise the curative effect will be reduced or the condition will rebound. The elderly should listen to the doctor's advice in advance when reducing the dosage of drugs or stopping taking drugs.

Chinese medicine can be used at will.

Generally speaking, the side effects of traditional Chinese medicine are smaller than those of western medicine, but that doesn't mean that traditional Chinese medicine has no side effects. Some Chinese medicines, if taken improperly, have great side effects, which may be life-threatening. Traditional medicine never denies the toxicity of traditional Chinese medicine, and has a deep understanding of the toxicity of traditional Chinese medicine. In the National Pharmacopoeia, except for drugs with no obvious toxic side effects, toxic drugs are divided into three levels, which are marked with "small toxicity", "moderate toxicity" and "great toxicity" respectively, and some drugs are also marked with their nephrotoxicity and hepatotoxicity.

Take drugs after drinking.

It is still meaningful to mention the old and the new. Chaplin, the master of humor, fell asleep after attending a grand reception. Who is the "murderer"? After testing, I knew it was wine and sleeping pills. Some readers have questions: Will alcohol and sleeping pills kill people? That's true. Although wine and medicine are "in-laws", farmers will also soak traditional Chinese medicine to promote blood circulation and dispel wind, and the word "medicine" in traditional Chinese characters is also inseparable from wine, but many drugs and wine are not "harmonious" and some even sing the opposite tune.

Commonly used sleeping pills, such as methaqualone, sleeping pills, barbital, etc., can cause poisoning consequences. Psychotropic drug chlorpromazine, etc. Taking it before and after drinking will also produce toxic and side effects of drugs and ethanol, which will make people sleepy, and in severe cases will lead to blood pressure drop, respiratory depression and death. In addition, alcohol should also be avoided when taking aspirin, anti-angina drugs, antihypertensive drugs, hypoglycemic drugs, antiallergic drugs and rifampicin, so as to avoid stomach bleeding, excessive blood pressure reduction or blood pressure surge, kidney damage, liver poisoning and other phenomena. Because alcohol has a metabolic process, drinkers should abstain from drinking for 0 ~ 2 days before taking the above drugs, and do not drink alcohol for 3 ~ 4 days after stopping taking them.

Commonly used drugs and precautions for the elderly:

Old people who don't need or use drugs less should use drugs as little as possible except for emergency or organic diseases. The principle of medication is to treat with the least amount of drugs and the lowest effective dose. Commonly used drugs should be controlled in 3 ~ 4 kinds, otherwise it is easy to produce adverse reactions. Drugs that need to be used for a long time should start with a small dose and gradually increase the dose according to the treatment response and the patient's tolerance. Before replacing or adding another drug, please try to add the used drug to the therapeutic dose. Care should be taken when combining drugs. Before the combination of drugs, each drug should be added to the therapeutic dose. Avoid using one drug to treat adverse reactions caused by another drug. If we can judge which drug caused the adverse reaction, stopping using this drug is the best treatment. Try to reduce the types of drugs, such as treating two or more diseases with one drug. Communicate with other doctors to avoid repeated prescriptions and minimize the types of drugs used.

Rational use of antibiotics toxic to the kidney and central nervous system, such as streptomycin and gentamicin, should be avoided as far as possible and should not be used in combination. Adrenal cortical hormone should not be used as much as possible, nor should it be used in large doses for a long time. If necessary, calcium and vitamin D should be supplemented. Taking antipyretic and analgesic drugs for a long time will do more harm than good, so use them as little as possible. Thiazine diuretics are not suitable for patients with diabetes and gout because they are easy to cause hyperglycemia and gout attacks. Thiazine diuretics are also easy to cause hypotension and electrolyte disorder, so we should pay attention to the changes of blood pressure when taking drugs, and should not drop too low or too fast.

Choosing the right dose The initial drug treatment should start with a small dose and then gradually increase to the most suitable dose. In order to avoid drug accumulation and poisoning in the body, measures can be taken to reduce the dose of each administration and extend the interval between each administration.

For the elderly with acute diseases, drug treatment should be moderate, and the drug should be stopped in time after the condition improves, rather than taking drugs for a long time.

Pay attention to the influence of drugs on other diseases of the elderly. Old people often suffer from various chronic diseases, such as glaucoma, prostatic hyperplasia and central nervous system diseases. In the drug treatment of central nervous system diseases in the elderly, many drugs have anticholinergic effects, which can cause urinary retention and glaucoma deterioration if not paid attention to.

Improve the compliance of medication for the elderly. The elderly have poor comprehension, poor memory, poor eyesight and hearing loss. At the same time, using a variety of drugs, especially drugs with similar shapes, often leads to taking the wrong drugs. The more drugs are used, the worse the compliance. Therefore, doctors and family members of patients should pay special attention to them.

The elderly often suffer from chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes, and need to take multiple drugs at the same time. Once you encounter a "minor illness" such as a cold, there are more kinds of drugs. A clinical study showed that the incidence of adverse reactions was 4.2% when five drugs were combined, 7% when taking 6 ~ 10 drug, and more than 24% when taking 10 drug.

Precautions for the elderly to take medicine:

According to the statistics of the World Health Organization (WHO), 65,438+0/7 elderly people in the world died not from natural aging or disease, but from unreasonable drug use. The Annual Report of National Adverse Drug Reaction Monitoring (20 14) issued by China Food and Drug Administration shows that the proportion of people over 65 reporting adverse drug reactions is 19.9%. We found in Linyi that many old people have new health problems because of using the wrong medicine. The following five points need special attention.

Slow metabolism, pay attention to observe the side effects. Most drugs need to be absorbed through gastrointestinal tract, metabolized by liver and excreted by kidney. The functions of various organs of the elderly are gradually weakening. Generally speaking, taking the same dose of drugs may reduce the absorption of active ingredients and prolong the metabolic time, leading to the accumulation of drugs in the body and increasing the risk of adverse drug reactions. Therefore, the elderly who often take drugs should regularly monitor the liver and kidney function and other indicators.

There are many kinds of drugs, so be careful about their interactions. The elderly often suffer from chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes, and need to take multiple drugs at the same time. Once you encounter a "minor illness" such as a cold, there are more kinds of drugs. A clinical study showed that the incidence of adverse reactions was 4.2% when five drugs were combined, 7% when taking 6 ~ 10 drug, and more than 24% when taking 10 drug. Many elderly people eat the drugs they need to take together, and drug interactions may occur. It is recommended that the elderly inform the doctor of all the drugs they are taking when they see a doctor, and try to avoid using drugs that affect each other in the prescription. You can also consult a pharmacist before taking the medicine. When taking multiple drugs, it is best not to take health care products at the same time, so as not to increase the risk of interaction.

Memory is poor, making a list can prevent omission. The memory of the elderly is decreased, and there are many kinds of drugs, which are easy to miss and affect the therapeutic effect. After missing antihypertensive drugs and hypoglycemic drugs, not only blood pressure and blood sugar will increase, but also complications may be promoted. It is suggested that family members help the elderly to establish a "file" of drugs they need to take, list the time, types and precautions of drugs they need to take in a period of time, remember to take drugs by setting an alarm clock, and pack drugs in a small medicine box if necessary. If the medicine is missed, the missing time should be calculated. In most cases, if the missed medication time is less than half of the two medication times, you can take the original dose, otherwise you don't need to take it, and you can take it normally in the future. However, if you are taking antihypertensive drugs, hypoglycemic drugs and other chronic diseases, it is recommended to consult a doctor.

Take the medicine for a long time, pay attention to regular review and adjust the medicine when necessary. Many elderly people think that they are "following the doctor's advice" and have always insisted on taking medicine. However, due to the lack of regular review, not only the therapeutic effect of drugs is not good, but also other organs may be hurt. For example, taking statins requires regular monitoring of liver and kidney function; Long-term use of antihypertensive drugs is not effective, which will not only damage the target organs such as heart, brain and kidney, but also cause other complications. If you find that the medication effect is not good, you should consult a doctor in time and adjust the medication plan if necessary.

Some drugs are more harmful to the elderly and should be avoided as much as possible. For example, sleeping pills such as diazepam may cause "hangover" symptoms, that is, unconsciousness, inattention and unsteady walking, just like being drunk. Old people are prone to fall down after taking diazepam, resulting in adverse consequences such as fractures; Many compound cold medicines contain chlorpheniramine, an antiallergic ingredient, which can relieve symptoms such as stuffy nose and runny nose. However, taking drugs containing this ingredient in the elderly with prostatic hyperplasia or constipation may aggravate the difficulty of urination and defecation. Ibuprofen is a commonly used antipyretic and analgesic drug, but it should be used with caution for the elderly with poor gastrointestinal function and some heart diseases.