Jan: Starting and changing medicines – Different feelings about starting a medicine
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Jan
Female
Age at interview: Undisclosed
Number of medicines: 15
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian
Jan had a number of extremely disruptive episodes of illness. It was a relief to begin medication that controlled these.
I mean, the Augmentin Duo, which is the one I probably take most regularly of the irregular ones … it was such a relief to take it! I mean, it made such a difference. And it was frustrating when they tried me on other antibiotics, even though the Augmentin Duo was working, they didn't want me to rely just on that. And, on each of those occasions, they just didn't work effectively and that was really frustrating, because you weren't getting well, but you were taking the medication. And it was a relief when they said, ‘Well, look, we'll stop fiddling around with other antibiotics. It's working for you, so we'll leave you with it.’ And that was a relief.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.