Having an updated record of medications will prevent you from forgetting to take any of them and will facilitate the monitoring of your trusted doctor.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) may require you to take more than one pill a day. But don’t worry, it’s easy to take all your medications with proper monitoring. Therefore, prepare a list with all the ones you take and update it constantly.
Here are some of the guidelines for keeping your MS medication in order:
Includes all medications prescribed by your doctor
Do not forget to add what day they were prescribed, the reason, the dose you should take, for how long, and the pharmacy where you obtained them. Also note if taking the medicine causes any side effects.
Add food supplements
What do you take with the doses, times you take them and for what reasons, leaving a space for the effects that may cause you and, if you use a preparation with many ingredients, write them down and take the container to the next medical appointment.
Make a calendar.
Just listing all your medications will probably not be enough. To make it clearer when to take the doses and for better organization, make a calendar detailing whether you should take the medication before breakfast, during lunch or dinner, or before going to sleep.
Lean on technology.
If you have a Smartphone, you can compile this list through various applications. This is the case of RecuerdaMed, an app of the Andalusian Public Health System, which allows you to make your list of medicines just by scanning the barcode of the medicine. Apart from this app, Dosecast and Medisafe also include an alarm every time you have to take one.
The Center d’Informació de Medicaments de Catalunya allows you to make a personalized medication plan through its website, in which medications can be included depending on the time of day they are taken, in addition to exporting it in PDF and sending it by email.
Summary
Keeping the list of medications updated will favor personalized monitoring by your trusted doctor. Find out which medication your health insurance covers and ask if you still need to take any of them. Don’t wait a second if you notice unusual symptoms right after taking a new medicine and let your doctor know. It is also advisable to give a copy of the list to a trusted person in an emergency.
Do you also have a list of medications? Explain your experience to us.