Mixing pills (prescription and over-the-counter)

[Taviterry]

A frequent query is about the effect of pills and how one might interact with another. The usual advice is to read the leaflet and check with one's pharmacist or GP. On occasion I've suggested that Googling and consulting authoritative websites should also be considered, as I wonder to what extent even a health professional can be aware of all the effects of countless combinations.

I've mentioned before how my heart surgeon and GP disagreed about whether I should take one product. It turned out that the GP was correct, but initially she prescribed something that every authority warned was not ideal. I've also recounted how one nutritionist friend has given me NINE sales talks for a popular supplement that I would need to be very careful with.

Ever since my heart op, I've spent a lot of time researching the interaction of pills, when to take them and when not to take them. I take two popular vitamins that seem to be safe and a supplement (now on prescription) that can lead to problems.

I've just bought a very popular vitamin which, my research suggested, seems to be the only supplement that might alleviate one condition. I Googled again, and this time found that it could give a false low reading in a very specific blood test.

I've almost got to the stage of drawing up a chart to list all the possibilities!

At the risk of appearing immodest, I have decades of experience to an academic level of researching facts - and fallacies - and analysing their veracity , though not in a medical context.

It's all very confusing ... 😮‍💨

[BeKind28-]

Hello

I can see you like researching things personally I find that confuses me even more when I do as you do get conflicting answers plus I am not medically trained so I do and would always advise to stick with what your Doctor or pharmacist says just the way I see it as they have spent years training and are qualified unlike someone like me that is not medically trained and can only share my experiences

Maybe researching to much is making you even more confused but everyone should talk to a professional before they start to draw up their own plan even if now and again the professionals disagree with each other and one is right and one is wrong but it is still their job x

[Happyrosie]

and indeed, Taviterry, what is a side effect for you when combining x with y might not be a side effect for me! So many variables.

My solution - such as it is - is to talk to one of the pharmacists employed by my doc’s group of surgeries.

[Nelson71]

listen to your GP and pharmacist, they’ve spent years learning all this stuff and the background data so you don’t have to. Although it’s nice to have this information at your fingertips sometimes a little knowledge can be very dangerous

[Granthamgeezer]

Hi Taviterry. Personally I go by how I feel regards my medication. 2 hours after taking a new prescription I felt like I was going to die so I stopped them immediately. Whether they were interacting with another medocation I was on or not I don't know. We are all different and I believe it's a case of trial and error and see how you feel on certain meds whatever the so called experts suggest.

[Taviterry]

But what if two medical professionals disagree, as did my surgeon and GP? The former was twice adamant that I did not need an antacid (often prescribed to counteract the effects of Clopidogrel), the GP was adamant that I did - and prescribed Omeprazole! Google the two together, as I did, for universal warnings against mixing them. At the same time I was resisting hard-sell talks from a nutritionist friend to take Omega 3. My GP's pharmacist agreed with me that I shouldn't, but urged that I take an antacid, with my GP then offering me a choice of Omeprazaole or Lansoprazole and eventually issuing a prescription for the latter. I didn't take the pills for several weeks, but within a few days of doing so my stomach discomfort all but vanished.

At the time I was having a deep massage very week, until alerted about the risks by this forum. I shudder a little when I think what might have happened had I been taking Omeprazole and Omega 3 at that time ...

Forty years ago, a terrible GP prescribed some pills that made me feel worse. (No information leaflets in those days!) A consultant immediately changed them. And when my dad went into hospital on a regime of eight different pills, the consultant there winced and immediately changed two of them.

[Taviterry]

Post-TAVI I wrote down a few notes on a sheet of paper the best times to take the various pills, but that soon disappeared. Now I'm word-processing a document listing them all, best time to take, interactions etc.