Glenn: Problems with multiple medicines (II) – Accidents and making mistakes with medicines
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Glenn
Male
Age at interview: 50
Number of medicines: 6
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian
Glenn once took the wrong pain reliever by mistake and it interacted with one of the medicines he takes.
Yes, only when I accidentally took ... I got up in the middle of the night and I had a very pain ... big pain in the back of my neck and I needed to take something. I grabbed what I thought was Panadol and it wasn't, it was Nurofen and I had cramping of the stomach and vomiting and I couldn't understand why. It wasn't til the next morning when I actually saw what was still sitting on the bench that I'd taken the wrong painkiller ... because it interacts with lithium and can make it toxic.
The other things with the lithium too, that I need to be very, very careful of, is hydration and dehydration. I no longer go out to parties and get drunk and trash myself because I'll wake up the next day and I'll be very, very sick. Not only from the alcohol but from the lithium becoming toxic if I don't drink enough and keep myself hydrated. It becomes toxic again, so either end of the scale ... if you're dehydrated it becomes toxic, if you take too much water in it becomes toxic.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.