Basic rules for taking pills

Before, during and after meals – how is it?

Before meals or after – is there a difference?

Medications can be taken before, after, with or without food. Some do not understand while eating is like? Indeed, if in the understanding of the majority, food is porridge with a cutlet and compote, then for the doctor and our body, daily snacks in the form of a banana, apple or snack are also a full meal. After all, when they are used, the stomach secretes enzymes and hydrochloric acid, and all digestion processes occur in the same way as when digesting more “serious” food.

Why do some pills need to be taken after meals, or between meals? Drugs that must be taken after meals usually irritate the stomach lining or are taken to normalize digestion. How long after a meal are the tablets taken? Usually 30 minutes to one hour.

Therefore, if the drug should be taken before meals, then in most cases this means taking the drug on an empty stomach with a further interval before meals of at least 30 minutes. “Drink pills on an empty stomach” is how? Ideally, at least two hours after meals and one hour before meals. This is necessary so that the drug, upon entering the stomach, is not exposed to the action of gastric juice, and therefore does not lose its properties.

How to take pills if written with food? Medicines that are taken with food have only individual exceptions related to the type of food with which they can be mixed. The doctor must inform the patient about them. For example, some antidepressants are forbidden to be taken with cheese, as it contains a substance such as tyramine, which, when interacting with drugs for depression, leads to a sharp increase in pressure.

Correct dosages and quantities of drugs

It is important to take only the dosage indicated in the prescription or other instructions. Dosage is carefully determined by your doctor and may depend on your age, weight, kidney and liver health, and other health conditions. Usually, doctors, when prescribing a treatment regimen, describe in detail which drug, when to take, from which it becomes clear whether they can be taken together. If your doctor has not told you this, be sure to ask him how to take the medicine.

Remember that if you are taking any medications yourself, try to keep at least a half-hour interval between taking them.
This is necessary because, in our understanding, taking a handful of pills is absolutely normal, although even today medicine has not studied all the options for drug interactions. Moreover, vitamin complexes, dietary supplements and herbs are also pharmacologically active substances and can enter into various reactions with the pills we take for the same colds, coughs and other things. Such a “medicated smoothie” at best will simply be ineffective and “transit” will pass through your body. Another option may be the development of adverse reactions, starting with allergies, ending with an ulcer or gastritis.

What intervals should be between taking the pills?

When a doctor tells us to take a medicine, such as 1 tablet 2 times a day, we perceive this as 2 doses within 16-17 hours of the time during which we are awake. Doctors mean 24 hours.

Check with your doctor for the specific time of taking the prescribed medicine for you, for example, 2 times a day, how is it? If the appointment sheet says 8:00 and 20:00 or 10:00 and 22:00 there will be no misunderstandings, the same is true with how to drink pills 3 times a day or how to drink pills 4 times a day.

And this is not due to making the medication more inconvenient for you, but to the fact that the body works not only when we are awake, but also when we sleep.

Therefore, if the doctor prescribes the drug 2, 3, 4 times a day, the interval between taking the pills should be 12, 8 and 6 hours, respectively, and not the time when it is convenient for us or when we remembered that we need to take a pill.

The most common mistakes when taking pills

The main mistakes in the rules for taking medicines:

• Incorrect storage.
• Use of expired medicines.
• The use of pills in handfuls for other purposes.
• Using tea, coffee, juice to drink medicine.
• Dividing drugs into parts.
• Wrong combination of medicine and food.
• Incorrect frequency of reception.