Helen: How people feel – It gets better over time
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Helen
Female
Age at interview: 58
Number of medicines: 10
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian
Helen is still in the process of getting used to her medication regimen. She has used humour to diffuse tough situations and over time she has been able to see the benefits of taking medicines.
I think by that stage I'd thought well, if I'm going to be taking medication, I'd like it to be doing the job it's supposed to do. So if this is going to make my health a little bit better, without me having to make any other changes, this is a good thing. So I was quite happy to add some medication. I think the time I went on that medication was around about the time that Shane Warne's mother had given him some Moduretic. There was a little bit of a joke happening about oh well, it'll take the lines off your face, if you're on a diuretic. So at the time, it was kind of a bit of a fun thing. I guess I also have an attitude now, where if I have to take a medication to actually live better, that's actually a good thing to do. Not something that I should really fight.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.