Sue: How people feel – Long-term impact of multiple medicines
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Sue
Female
Age at interview: 65
Number of medicines: 16
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian
Sue finds alternatives to medicines for pain relief whenever possible, as she does not want to overload her liver due to the condition she has and the number of medicines she is taking regularly.
Well even just things like headaches and so on, for me a headache doesn't need … I don't take an aspirin. I mean partly it's because I'm also very careful to minimise anything that might put any more … extra stress on the liver but usually for me a headache means I go and have a lie down for a while or have a couple of big drinks of water because maybe I'm dehydrated. I won't take an aspirin for it. I remember having some root canal I think it was, work done once and the dentist … because I had to be referred to someone who could do all that fancy stuff. He said, go and get some Nurofen if it's hurting … if it's painful. So I went in, checked with the pharmacist, and asked them to look up what the contraindications were and it said it's not terribly good for the liver, so I just … well no I won't take it. I just let it go. I didn't have too much discomfort but I was prepared to put up with it rather than put something else in the system.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.