Dangerous drugs are not just drugs you might buy in the street or at a club, like heroin or MDMA (ecstasy). Today, far more people could face drug problems because of drugs they can find in their medicine cabinets.
These drugs are prescription drugs and over-the-counter (OTC) drugs (drugs that don’t require a doctor’s prescription to buy or use). People might believe that prescription drugs are safer than other types of drugs because doctors and pharmacists prescribe and dispense them.
But that doesn’t mean that people always use such drugs correctly. They might use too many, too few, or they might take prescriptions intended for others. They also might use prescription pills with other drugs, with alcohol, with foods and drinks, or with certain health conditions that might diminish the effectiveness of the prescription drugs or make them extremely dangerous.
They might also use more than one prescription drug at a time and create adverse reactions. Adverse drug interactions are common and can be deadly. A study published in a 2004 issue of The BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) found that adverse drug reactions led to 1,225 hospital admissions in just two English hospitals in just six months.
Adverse drug interactions don’t discriminate. They occur in the young and the old and the rich and the poor. People believe that such reactions contributed to the deaths of a number of celebrities, including Heath Ledger, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis Presley.
Luckily, there are things you can do to reduce the chances of experiencing such interactions:
- Communicate. Let your doctors and pharmacists know about the drugs you’re taking and about your medical conditions.
- Read. Study the labels and other literature on your drugs and ask questions.
- Follow. After determine that you’re taking the right medications and the right dosages, follow the instructions for using them. You might have to take them with food, on an empty stomach, at certain times of day, or follow other requirements.
- Monitor. Pay attention to how you feel when you take the drugs to determine how they’re affecting you. Consider writing down this data and discussing it with your health professionals.
As you can see, paying attention to your medications and their effects and discussing your medications are relatively simple ways you can stay healthy and avoid potentially deadly drug interactions.
