Helen: Travelling with multiple medicines – Medicines mistakes and accidents whilst travelling
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
Despite having prepared very carefully before she went away, Helen ran out of medication when she was last overseas, which was a frightening experience.
Helen:
The last time I travelled, I actually ran out of medication, which was terrifying. I had counted, I thought, very, very carefully, exactly what I needed for each day by the number of days we were travelling. We went on a trip that went for about 12 weeks that time. I ended up having something like 10 weeks' worth of medication for my hypertension. I realised that I was about to run out of it about a week before I was going to run out. So I then worked out a routine, where I reduced the dosage to one-quarter of what I'd been taking and took that every day, instead of taking what I should have been taking. Modified our activities considerably, so I wouldn't put myself under too much stress. But lived in great fear that we were going to be stuck in a country where I didn't speak the language and I didn't have a script with me, and something was going to go wrong. Now it didn't, but it meant that part of our holidays was really quite adversely affected. So what I've learnt from that is to very, very carefully work out what I need to take with me when I travel. Also to take a script with me, just in case all else fails.
Jacqueline:
Have you had problems with just a weekend away, things like that?
Helen:
No, weekends away are fine. I'm used to packaging up my drugs and taking them with me. But when you're looking at longer-term travel and you've got multiple medications, yeah, it's complicated and easy to make a mistake.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.