Teresa, over at Making Light, has just had an unfortunate/horrible/vile mixup with her prescription medication.

I’ve taken various prescription medications for various problems at various times throughout my adulthood (all of which made me glad to have health coverage that paid for prescriptions drugs) and never really thought much about it.

Which is quite odd, considering that for many people, such medications keep them alive and functioning in a way that would have been impossible a century ago. (See the recent article in US News about FDR’s heart disease.)

Three incidents in the past made me think more seriously about the medicines that we take for granted. The first was when my grandmother got her blood pressure prescription filled while visiting my Aunt. (Point: It was not her regular pharmacist.) She got the pills home and thought that they looked different–they were–they were the wrong pills. If she hadn’t noticed, well, things could have been bad.

The second was my great-aunt Sophie going into the hospital after her heart slowed to a dangerous level. She was taking several different medications, all of which affected her heart, and they call combined to cause a serious problem.

The third incident was when my husband’s grandmother went to a gerontologist. One of the things she had to do was to take ALL of her meications with her. The gerontologist was able to drastically cut down her medications by cutting out some medicines entirely, and suddently she felt better than she had in a long time.

The point of this is that it is impossible for a doctor to know everything about all the medications out there. The problem is even worse if a person goes to several doctors for different problems. A specialist may be familar with the drugs to treat the disorders of their speciality, but is probably not familar with drugs used outside their speciality. And if the patient does not get all their prescriptions filled at the same pharmacist, the problem is that much worse.

If you consider this with the fact that prescription drug errors are on the rise, you are looking at a serious problem, whose best solution is for patients to be proactive: to check their prescriptions carefully each month, to make sure that all doctors they see know they full range of medications they are taking, to make sure that their pharmacist knows ALL the medications they are taking, and to ask the pharmacist about OTC drugs that may interact with prescription medications.

And the elderly who are taking multiple medications should consider seeing a gerontologist, because as we age, our metabolism changes, and a dosage that may be acceptable for a 40-year old may not be correct for a 70-year old.

So take her post, and this one, as a reminder to check your medications every time you pick them up, and to let your doctor know about all medicines you’re taking–even over-the-counter drugs and vitamins.

It could be worth your life to do so.