Happily, I am just on aspirin. I was on Lovenox and Coumadin at various times before and after my ablations (2 atrial ablations, 1 pulmonary vein ablation), and am very grateful not to have anything to do with them now.
<hangs head in shame>
I’m winning the thread right now—15
But I am not the worst: Mrs. Vorlon is on MORE, with her most severe issue was Coumadin stopped working for her, which we discovered when she had her third PE.
Now I get to stab her every day with $100 of low molecular weight heprin.
<Norman Bates> “Oh Mother?” </Norman Bates>
One Lexapro, 10 mg, once a day.
I might have to up mine. I either broke or sprained my toe this afternoon. So I’m probably going back on the NSAID. And I forgot to mention that my GP wants me to take a prescription Prilosec while I’m on the NSAID. So I’ll probably be at 3 for a bit, then back down to 1.
Actually, that’s one a day regularly. But I suffer from a skin problem that flares up irregularly. I can go months or even a year with no problem, other times it comes once a month. Upon my dermatologist’s advice, I keep some Augmentin and Erythromycin on hand, also available over the counter here, and take those for a week or two during those periods. So that’s three total during these periods.
Three. Contraceptive pill, iron supplements and Vitamin C to help me absorb the iron. (Hmm … does the Vitamin C count as prescription medication? It’s OTC, but my doctor told me to take it. Oh well, too late to change my vote now.)
None. Healthy as a horse and twice as smart.
Though in the interest of full disclosure I do have an Epipen in the event I ever manage to ingest enough lobster for it to be needed. Never used one though.
I take one daily for my horrid, horrid allergies.
Two, an SSRI and a beta blocker in a very low dose for migraine prevention. I used to take more of the beta blocker for anxiety, but in my current always tired state, the side effects aren’t worth it. Plus I can deal with my anxiety on my own much better than I used to.
10 different meds for a total of 23 tablets per day
1 blood pressure tablet each morning.
None, and doctors would have to make a damn good case to get me to start taking anything. I’m perfectly open to diet and exercise solutions.
Five - two antidepressant, two blood pressure, one Ambien, + the recommended baby aspirin, plus a jab in the butt every three months for birth control. I also take a pro-biotic supplement and, often, Aleve.
An antidepressant, and birth control pills. Don’t wanna go to jail, don’t wanna get knocked up - so far, they’re both doing the trick. 
Not a doctor, but I review a lot of med records. And it is not at all unusual to see folk on as many as 20 rx meds, usually including a nice sampling of narcotics and psychotropics in addition to the diabetic/cardio cocktail mentioned above. Of course, the kicker is these heavily medicated folk often complain that the meds don’t relieve their symptoms and, instead, cause significant side effects. Meanwhile, a good percentage of them are sedentary, obese, and smoke… :rolleyes:
When the total number of meds increases I often wonder if the risk of adverse interactions adds to or exacerbates the diagnosed conditions. I understand that doctors can have a good grasp of the interactions between drug A and B. But how well are docs able to assess the interactions among 10-15-20 meds?
Polypharmacy. But the “good” news is that the patients you’re talking about are also really bad at taking all of their meds. So we really have no idea what they’re taking or when, or why what should work isn’t working, or what might be interacting with what. That’s when they call me in, as if I can sort it all out in an hour. :smack:
Electronic recordkeeping and a single patient database is supposed to, someday, reduce polypharmacy by giving every doctor your current med list. But to be honest, I don’t think it’s going to solve the problem. It certainly won’t stop the problem of people not taking all the meds on the list. But more troubling to me is the reluctance of physicians to change or discontinue any medication prescribed by another doctor - even if the patient is no longer being seen by the doctor who prescribed the medication. The most common reasons they give me are professional courtesy and that they’re afraid of being sued if something goes wrong, or of worsening a problem that they surmise exists because of that prescription. It takes a pretty dramatic adverse event for a doctor to change another doctor’s ordered medication. Generally they just keep adding new drugs to the list, some of them to treat side effects of other drugs that may no longer be needed (if they ever really were.)
I’ve just increased my weekly visits to monitor a patient’s reaction to a dramatic change in his medications - 6 meds from his list discontinued at once after he got dizzy, blacked out and had a fall and was taken to the ER. Four of them were blood pressure medications, leaving him on…zero blood pressure medications. It’s a little terrifying. But the hospital doctor thinks maybe he doesn’t have high blood pressure at all, maybe his symptoms are caused by migraines and depression, so he took him off the blood pressure stuff and put him on a tricyclic antidepressant instead. There is more detailed CYA documentation on the decision than I’ve ever seen on hospital notes ever. So far, the patient is responding very well, so it appears that his primary doctor was indeed way overmedicating him because he refused to pull him off any of his previous meds, just kept adding on new ones when those didn’t work.
Two: an inhaled steroid, used regularly, and an albuterol inhaler for problematic episodes (I use this often enough for it to count).
Just reviewed a file where the neurologist attributed the complaints of headaches to anagesic overuse! :rolleyes:
None at the moment. Not that I don’t take daily pills - I take a daily allergy pill and an antacid pill, but both of those are over the counter.
I do get weekly allergy shots if that’s any help.
Two: one for hypertension, one for COPD.