Emma: The attitudes of others – Taking ‘many’ medicines (2)
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Emma
Female
Age at interview: 41
Number of medicines: 19
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian
Emma does not mind close friends knowing about her medicines as much as she used to, but she prefers to keep her medicines away from people she doesn’t know well.
I guess originally I probably hid the medications if my friends were coming over. I didn’t really want people to see because I'm actually on a large amount of medication, probably over 10. So it doesn't really look good all piled up. Like I've got a small freezer at home so they're all sitting there. I guess with my really good friends, they know I'm on all these things now. So I just leave them there and I don’t bother. So I guess that probably doesn’t worry me now, having them out on show. I guess if someone I didn’t know so well was coming then I might hide them just to keep them away. You don’t really want people to know that you're on so many things, I guess.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.