|
Posted on 12/24/2008 11:00:36 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Older adults in the United States are popping prescription pills, over-the-counter drugs and dietary supplements in record numbers, and in combinations that could be deadly, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
They said more than half of U.S. adults aged 57 to 85 are using five or more prescription or non-prescription drugs, and one in 25 are taking them in combinations that could cause dangerous drug interactions.
"Older adults in the United States use medicine and they use a lot of it," said Dr. Stacy Tessler Lindau of the University of Chicago Medical Center in Illinois, whose study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"While medications are often beneficial, they are not always safe," she said in a telephone interview.
She noted a recent report that estimated U.S. adults over 65 make up more than 175,000 emergency department visits a year for adverse drug reactions, and commonly prescribed drugs accounted for a third of these visits.
(Excerpt) Read more at uk.reuters.com ...
fyi
|
If you folks have older people in your family, check their medications. My father was give an unbelievable amount of drugs. We finally took him to the hospital when he was having problems at 82 years of age. They couldn’t believe the bag of crap we brought in with him. Then they took him off of most of the drugs. You even have to watch out for this because he had a massive stroke when they took him off the drugs. It has to be done slowly. It’s difficult to learn the hard way and it will hurt. Take care of your parents and grandparents or anyone you care about.
Viagra and ex-lax.
I got the nursing home where she is, and her doctor to cooperate in weaning her off some drugs.
The results are phenomenol and even siblings who think doctors can do no wrong admit there is a remarkable improvement.
My mom has been robbed of years of her life. I am both grateful and bitter at the same time.
The article mentionned bleeding problems as being one of the most common complications. It doesn’t even have to be long term use of the drugs. I had a patient long-term on Coumadin. 12 hours after one of his golfing buddies gave him a couple aspirin for a headache, he had a major GI bleed. (I do not like GI bleeds at all. Neither does the patient.)
At 75 I have been there and seen that...
Heads up you old duffers...
So now we’re startin a ping list for dirty ol men??? (grin)
I’m 63. I had a couple of golfing buddies (when I was in my late forties I golfed with them regularly, they were in their late fifties then) who both died from abdominal aneurism burst. Both were using Viagra to ‘re-ignite their sex lives’. I’m convinced the viagra was responsible for the aortic aneurism. Both smoked, too, lending to the potential for the aortic aneurism. But IMHO the Viagra pushed them over the edge, so to speak.
I have pretty much become anti-drug. I haven’t taken a prescription drug in years and have no plans to. I will in an extreme situation but it will have to be extreme. I’ve seen the damage they’ve done.
Besides drug-drug interactions, there are food-drug interactions. Grapefruit was already mentioned on the thread. It interferes with the metabolism of some drugs. Foods rich in vitamin K interfere with coumadin(warfarin).
Yah,...and we’ll have some fun too!
I WAS there,...but I don’t dare miss by current medications.
miss my ...geez...
At 65 I take only 500mg of niacin and 81mg of aspirin daily.
Watch the sodium content of the food you eat....high blood pressure and the 81 mg of aspirin can cause the kind of trouble that I had....
Thanks. My blood-pressure has never been an issue...I’ve always eaten low salt.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
Ernest_at_the_Beach