Micaela: Knowing about multiple medicines – The internet
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Micaela
Female
Age at interview: 38
Number of medicines: 21
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian
Micaela found online forums helpful when she needed to discuss what she was going through, but did not want to join a face-to-face support group.
It was a forum and … although it did … it was just a place for people with many different problems and conditions, but you could then tap in … you could branch off and talk to just people with Crohn's and colitis or ... I never find very many people ... I never find very much with the inflammatory eye problems, other than I found a couple of organisations which are professional and so it's more about publishing ... they publish a lot of academic [inaudible] research, but not so much actual sufferers or patients of that particular condition. But Crohn's, there seems to be a lot out there and so I would get on the forum and I would chat to various people and coincidentally, around about the same time, I was learning Greek and it just so happened that the President of the Crohn's support organisation in NSW was in my class, but they were at North Ryde and that was too hard to get to and I thought, ‘Do I actually want to sit down with people ... maybe that's a bit too in your face.’
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.