Is there a web site where you can enter a series of meds. and get a report on potential conflicts?
I’ve tried the pharmaicist route and asking the docs., but I’m not satisfied w/ the responses I get. FTR I’ve got several MDs. prescribing several different meds. I am careful to advise each of the meds. I’m taking to that point, but I’d like to find a way to monitor this stuff myself, so I can ask informed questions when needed and avoid any problems.
The website drugs.com has a medication interactions checker.
I’m not taking any medications, but out of curiosity I tested it by inputting metformin (diabetes medication) and Vasotec (for high blood pressure), which it says has a moderate interaction as ACE inhibitors can potentiate the hypoglycemic effects of oral antidiabetic drugs.
It also says whether or not they may interact and how much, how to manage the interaction/dosage changes, other drugs your medications can interact with, and how your medications react with food.
If you take all of your prescriptions to the same pharmacy, their computers should have programs that alert them of potential interactions- I don’t know of any that don’t. I’m surprised that a pharmacist didn’t tell you that.
THANKS! I’ll check it out.
It’s been kind of piecemeal to this point, but in the past few weeks there have been a lot of prescriptions and, while I did pretty well keeping up before, I’m beginning to feel overwhelmed. I’ve never tried giving one pharmacist the whole list at one time, but thatt’s a possibility. On the otherhand, I’m anticipating a number of additions/changes to my meds in the near furture and it would be helpful to have a place where I can do routine periodic checks to spot potential problems. I’m pretty agressive about asking questions, but when your seeing several docs and there are so many questions, it’s not easy to stay on top of everything. I always remember something that I forgot to ask and I’m guessing that I’m pretty typical in that respect.
The internet is great for keep informed, used judiciciously and intelligently of course. I’m just looking for suggestions and cites that might help me.
Just wanted to pop in and say thanks to Waenara for posting this link; I’m currently on a handful of meds for chronic conditions (asthma, hypertension, thyroid) and a handful more for an asthma flareup (including ones to combat the side effects of the asthma treatment) and it’s interesting to read some of the potential concerns.
One disadvantage of a lot of prescription coverage nowadays in the US is that you have to mail-order your longer-term meds (or they cost substantially more) while you get the urgent stuff (e.g. my antibiotics and prednisone) locally… which means there’s limited interaction-checking.
ETA: Oh, and all my meds are prescribed by the same doctor which should in theory help control interaction issues but the docs don’t always have that info at their fingertips. It’s got to be even tougher for A.R. Cane with things from multiple docs.