Mia: How people feel – What multiple medicines signifies
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Mia
Female
Age at interview: 30
Number of medicines: 12
Cultural background: Israeli-Australian
Mia finds that being on anything more than two medicines is a lot for a young person. Multiple medicines do not fit with a young person’s lifestyle.
Mia:
Well, for a young person taking two is a lot, but when I realised, I think the turning point was when I realised that instead of being that person who takes the Panadol out of the packet, puts it right at the back of your tongue and goes [gulp], I would take my fist full of tablets and go [gulp] and I was that person who could do that. I’m like this is all a bit too easy. I think I do this a little bit too often but yeah, for a young person more than two is too many. It’s a lot.
Jacqueline:
So just from that point of being a young person who takes a lot of medicines, what are the issues around that? What’s involved there?
Mia:
Well, it's a lifestyle thing. You are not always going to take them in the morning because you are running late for work. You are not always going to take them at night because you might want to go out after work or with my job I might be working morning or I might be working night. Before I was doing the shift work your lifestyle gets in the way. I’m not always home for breakfast. I’m not always home for lunch. I’m not always home for dinner. I might want to go out and meet someone. Going out or I am sleeping in later than I normally would because I've been out the night before, you don’t have your medication there. It's one of those things, it's lifestyle-based; it doesn’t fit in with a young person's lifestyle.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.