Due to the lack of professional judgment, many people have a “herd mentality” when taking medicine. The most common example is the uncles and aunts in the square in the park exchanging home remedies and secret recipes for health care. But if you follow the trend when it comes to taking medicine, you may have endless troubles.
The elderly have a high incidence of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases due to the deterioration of their physical functions. At the same time, many elderly suffer from a variety of chronic diseases , need to take multiple drugs for a long time. Taking multiple drugs together may interact, resulting in reduced efficacy, enhanced toxicity, and even serious adverse reactions.
Patients with high blood pressure need to take medicine for life. Many elderly people find that their blood pressure will drop even if they don’t take medicine in summer, so they stop or reduce the antihypertensive medicine on their own, which is very inadvisable.
An antihypertensive drug must be taken regularly throughout life, otherwise it will cause blood pressure fluctuations and increase the risk of stroke, myocardial infarction, kidney damage, etc.
“Everyone is the same age, probably has some kind of problem, and should be able to take the same medicine”, many The old man saw that his peers around him were taking various medicines against cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, so he followed suit and took various medicines. For example, I heard that aspirin can prevent cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, prevent stroke, myocardial infarction, etc., so I bought aspirin and took it myself.
The consequences of taking the wrong medicine are extremely serious. Healthy people or patients who have not accurately assessed the risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, abuse aspirin for a long time without authorization, and are likely to experience adverse reactions such as gastrointestinal bleeding. In addition, aspirin also exists in various dosage forms such as enteric-coated tablets and tablets. Many elderly people will misremember their usage, and many patients mistakenly believe that aspirin enteric-coated tablets should be taken after meals.
Actually, it should be taken on an empty stomach, this is to allow the drug to enter the intestines quickly for action, while reducing stomach irritation from the drug.
It can be seen that the elderly need to pay special attention to the safety of medication when taking medicine. They should take rational and symptomatic medication under the guidance of a physician or pharmacist, and must not follow the trend.
Data: Zhongshan Qingpu Branch
Editor: Hu Xiaofan