Lyn: Routines with multiple medicines – Helpful ‘tools’ in creating routines
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Lyn
Female
Age at interview: 67
Number of medicines: 1
Cultural background: British-Australian
Lyn calls on her pharmacist to help her manage her routine when a new medicine in introduced.
I actually spoke to the pharmacist, because I always think that they know sometimes a lot more about the drugs than the doctors do. So, if I got prescribed a new drug, I would talk to the pharmacists and say … you know, we go to the same pharmacist all the time, so they know me, they know my regimen. I say, ‘Look, you know what I'm taking and how often. This new drug has been introduced. Do I need to think about when I take it? Can I take it in conjunction with the ones that I'm taking or do I have to leave a gap?’ So, I always talk to my pharmacist and find out whether two of them are going to fight if I put them together, which is how I know that the day I take the methotrexate, I don't take the folic acid and iron. It's talking to the pharmacist mainly that's helped me work out the regimen.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.