Taking medications correctly helps prevent avoidable hospitalizations and helps you manage your illness. If your medication routine is too complicated, ask your doctor or pharmacist to help you simplify the process.
Missing a dose or two of your medications may not seem like a big deal. Sometimes the skipped doses may not seem to cause any obvious problems. But many medications won’t work right if you don’t take them when and how you’re supposed to.
Why is it important not to forget to take your medications?
You may miss the best time window. Some pain medicines for arthritis work best if you treat your symptoms before they start. Otherwise, your pain flare-ups may be harder to suppress. If you have asthma, using your inhaler too late means you may not prevent irritated airways and the symptoms that follow. If you don’t finish your antibiotics, your infection might last longer or even come back. Then you may need a longer drug course or more powerful antibiotics. Incomplete treatments also may make you resistant to antibiotics, so take all your prescribed pills even if you feel better.
Your illness may get harder to treat. If you skip your HIV medication, your virus strain may get a chance to gain resistance to the treatment. That will make your infection harder to control.
You missed a dose—now what?
The answer depends on the type of medication you’re taking. For some drugs, your pharmacist may tell you to take your medication as soon as you realize you missed a dose. For other drugs, you may be told to just to skip past the missed dose and pick up with the next one.However, there are some general rules that apply to taking missed doses; Our pharmacists usually recommend this general rule of thumb: If it’s only been a few hours since your missed dose, go ahead and take it; then, take your next pill as usual. If it’s been more than a few hours, hold off and take your next dose on schedule. For example, say you need to take a pill twice a day, once at 7 a.m. and again at 7 p.m. If you realize you missed the morning dose at 10 a.m., go ahead and take it. But if you realize you missed it late in the day (say at 3 p.m.), skip it—just take your 7 p.m. dose as usual. Now you’re back on track! Feel like your Rx might be an exception to this rule? Better be safe and contact your pharmacist. You can check out creative ways to help you remember to take your meds.
Wondering whether to take double the dose or not?
In general, avoid doubling up on your medication even if you’re certain you missed a dose. So for the example above, if you’re supposed to take a particular prescription in the morning and at night, but you missed the morning dose, don’t take two pills at 7 p.m.
There’s one (very important!) exception to this rule: birth control. Missing your daily pill could lead to big consequences—like an unintended pregnancy.
Can’t remember if you took your meds?
If it’s nearly time for your next dose, simply take it as usual. If you’re feeling anxious or unsure of what to do, reach out to us, we have the solution for you! There are ways we help you keep easy track of your medication. We help package and sort your medication by dose and time into individual pouches. When its time to take your medicine you simply tear off the pouch. No muss, no fuss and very easy to keep track of. Try our Vitamin~Pill pack service today.
