1% Thursday: What are you taking your medication with?

This week – double check what you’re taking your medication with.

What am I talking about?  Well, most of us are familiar with the fact that some medication should be taken with food, some on an empty stomach, and so on.  Sometimes this impacts how the drugs work in your body.  Other times it’s just a matter of what’s more comfortable for you.

But there are other issues that you may or may not hear from your doctor.  Taking certain medications along with supplements, for example, could be a problem.  You may find both work better if they’re taken at different times.  Or you may need to cut out a supplement while taking a certain medication.

There is increasing concern about taking medications with juice – not just grapefruit juice, the most famous, but other juices such as apple and orange.  Various chemical interactions could mean you end up with more or less medicine than you bargained for – both a serious problem.  Try sticking to water.

Even taking some supplements together can be a problem.  For example, many people take calcium with magnesium, not realizing that you need to take magnesium for migraine without calcium (read more here).

So – quick tips:

• Try taking your medication with water, not juice
• Make sure your doctor is aware of all the medications and supplements you’re taking
• Check a reliable source for yourself to investigate possible interactions.  Good online sources include Medline Plus (English and Spanish, includes herbs) and MedBroadcast, and others.  I prefer to have a published work on hand, and like The Pill Book.

What is 1% Thursday?

Every Thursday at Headache and Migraine News (weather permitting) we’ll talk about one measurable, practical thing we can do to make our lives just 1% better.  Usually it will be something very easy, sometimes it will be a challenge.  Let us know if you try it, or share an idea of your own – and maybe a year from now we’ll see that things have really changed for the better!