Niall: Benefits and disadvantages – Symptom relief
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Niall
Male
Age at interview: 45
Number of medicines: 7
Cultural background: British (Caucasian)
Niall knows that he is doing the right thing with his medicines because of the reduction in his symptoms, as well as his test results.
I can look at my blood test results and … that's another thing, I do actually get them. A lot of people just hear of them, don't actually ever see them written down. You can, you can always ask for them. You can actually see where the improvements are, so you know you've done better and the recent one, having my HbA1c come down under 7, my GP was very pleased. She was much more pleased than I was! ‘Isn't that nice. There's improvement.’ She was just about ecstatic …But, yes, seeing those improvements in the numbers, that gives you a tangible ... you're doing something right. It may not just be the medications, but also, as I said, the lack of symptoms, so I don't get the pains in my side that I used to get once. Also, knowing I'm diabetic and adjusting my diet, I tend not to get lethargy as I used to get, because I understand where that's coming from, so it's about how I'm handling my blood sugars and so on. I now have a better awareness of my own body and how it's responding to what I'm doing to it.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.