I rec’d an asthma prescription (Singular) and it says to avoid taking with food. Wait 2 hours before eating or 3 hours after eating. Now this means I can’t eat anything for 5 hours before and after taking the pill. Is that right?
Say I take the pill at 3pm. That means the last food I should’ve eaten should’ve been at 12noon. And then after the pill is taken I should not eat for another two hours?
Odd because I reckon the idea is to take the pill on an empty stomach but if I wait 3 hours take the pill then eat right away I have food in my stomache. So I guess it shouldn’t be “or” it should be “and.”
Anyway, does anyone know what is correct. And what is food. Can I have coffee?
Ask your pharmacist- that’s what they’re there for. They will know the EXACT time you should take your med- DO NOT rely on anyone here to tell you. Those instructions could be interpreted different ways- let your pharmacist decipher them and give you the correct info. Otherwise, call your Dr. and ask. I recommend the pharmacist, as they usually are better informed on specifics like when to take a drug.
Some mornings it just doesn’t seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps. Zettecity
Thanks for the answers. The answer was by my pharmacist. She said what I quoted above.
What happened was I was on Accolate twice and when I changed jobs my new health plan said it wouldn’t cover Accolate but said Singular (which they cover is the same thing).
The instructions in the PDR read to take Singulair in the evening without respect to meals.
It is about 65% absorbed, with no significant difference in adults whether or not it is taken food. All of the studies submitted to the FDA were done with patients instructed to take it in the evening without respect to meals.
Go back to the pharmacy and ask for written information about this medication. You may luck out & get a user-friendly pamphlet, or you may get a wall of fine-print which is the same information in the PDR. Skim through the bolded paragraph headings until you get to the “Dosage & Administration” section. This is the information you need.
If, in the future, you get medication with this kind of nightmarish dosing instructions, and you can’t manage it, tell your doctor. Say Singulair really did have to be dosed as above, but your schedule didn’t provide a 5 hour period without food unless you got up 2 hours early.
Talk to your doctor. It may make the med a little less effective to vary from the usual instructions, but it’s still better than if you didn’t take it. There are other options as well - while most health plans have lists of “preferred” meds, like the one that forced you to change from Accolate to Singulair, the strength of that preference varies tremendously. In rare cases, the patient may get stuck for the whole cost of the non-preferred med, but usually the most you would pay would be the difference. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of the doc documenting why a non-preferred med is needed & the plan will cover it.
