Medical treatment is the administration of medicine into the human body to help treat an underlying condition, usually done by a health practitioner. When doing so, doctors usually prescribe certain kinds of drugs or medication. Following your prescription as per your doctor’s advice is very important.
This means taking your meds at the appropriate time of the day as well as adhering to the prescribed dosage. Failure to do this might lead to serious health consequences of drug misuse. There are so many instances where patients neglect their doctor’s advice and instead, DIY on over the counter medication, which often leads to many unpleasant repercussions. More often than not, underdosing or overdosing are also common issues.
It is important to note that proper medication follow up will help improve one’s health status as well as managing the ailment. In a nutshell, it is best to follow your doctor’s advice on how to take your medication because they know the repercussions of doing otherwise.
Patients need to understand some tips and safety precautions on how to handle medicines during treatment noted below:
- Keep time (be consistent on the time of the day you take your drugs).
- It is equally important to take a healthy meal
- Further still, keeping medicine in a lockable cupboard and away from children is a safety precaution
- Ensure that the dosage prescribed is completed
- It’s also important to store your medicine as recommended on the label
- Always check on the expiry dates
- Take note on the side effects and report them to your doctor, especially if they prevent you from continuing with the medication
Without further ado, here are some pointers revealing why taking your medication as prescribed by your doctor is important.
1. To Avoid the Risk of Developing Serious Problems
There is a risk of making a disease chronic when you fail to follow your doctor’s advice. This is according to the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention. It is also important for health practitioners to administer medication to their patients based on medical history. A proper understanding of medication reaction is important to a patient. In other words, drugs with serious effects should not be administered to certain patients. Jeffrey Preszler from PreszlerLaw.com warns that several of the most common prescription medications have been implicated in association with brain damage or mental conditions resulting from side effects.
For instance, some types of medicine may cause other ailments such as heart problems and liver failure. So it requires a doctor’s experience to know the alternative solutions available. All the same, as a patient, it is crucial to note that not taking your drugs as prescribed can worsen your health in the first place.
2. Help To Boost The Immune System
When medication is taken as prescribed, chances are that the drugs will help fight the disease-causing agents in your body. In a case where medication is not taken as prescribed, there is a tendency of bacteria and other disease-causing organisms to resist the drugs as a result of undertreatment. Drug resistance can weaken your immune system and completing dose as administered can help boost immunity, thus helping your quick recovery.
3. Proper Medical Follow-Up
Some chronic diseases may require you to adhere to medication as prescribed over a lengthy duration of time. This helps to manage the disease as well as in keeping track of your progress. Diseases like tuberculosis and cancer, just to mention few, are examples of chronic diseases that may require you to be on long-term medication. This helps the doctors to know their patient’s progress and keep proper records that can help in the entire treatment process.
4. Quick and Complete Recovery
It goes without saying, that no one wants to be constrained in a hospital bed for long. We, of course, look forward to a quick recovery. This will not be the case if you fail to follow the prescription to the letter. Needless to emphasize, following your prescription as per the doctor’s advice can fast-track your healing process and ensure a quick recovery.
5. An Improper Medical Prescription Can Lead To Costly Hospitalization
Failure to take your medicine as prescribed can worsen a situation and make an outpatient end up being hospitalized. This may be as a result of skipping medication, taking an overdose or underdose or failing to take medication at all. In the end, a mild situation may worsen or turn out being chronic, leading to high costs in the road to recovery.
Patients need to take their medication as prescribed in order to help solve other underlying problems. There is also the need for doctor-patient coordination to help achieve the desired results. This will, in turn, reduce the risks involved with improper prescription in health care.