Dr Susan Connelly: Taking complementary medicines
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Dr Susan Connelly
Main occupation: Geriatrician (specialist in aged care)
Years in clinical practice: 20
Qualifications: MBBS, FRACP
Dr Susan Connelly, geriatrician, explains that interactions may be attributed to the wrong medicine if doctors do not know all of the medicines—including complementary medicines—that their patient takes.
Yes. You just like to know what else they're taking. I mean, there's probably the odd one that perhaps they shouldn't be taking, that could interact with their existing medications, so it's good to know.
If you don't know they're taking it and they're taking it for a valid reason, but it's interacting with some traditional medication, then it's good to know. It may actually be that interacting with the scientific medication, rather than two of the prescribed medications interacting with each other that we might be attributing a problem to.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in
collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.