Medication Knowledge

This week I spoke with my parents and roommates about what medications they are taking. I started off by talking with my mom and dad together. Before I go further, as many of you already know, my mother is a telemetry nurse and therefore knows her fair deal about medications. She often will teach me about medications that are important to know. Therefore, I focused by survey on my dad who has diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and hypothyroidism. My dad has had these conditions for at least 10 years now and has been taking similar medications for them throughout the years. I assumed that my dad would be very knowledgeable regarding his medications but he wasn’t as knowledgeable as I thought he would be after all of these years. He understood that he was taking medications for blood pressure, high cholesterol, metabolism and his diabetes but he couldn’t specifically name each medication, the dosages or the correct times to take them. Although, I do give him credit because he is usually good about taking blood pressure and blood glucose levels before taking the medication or administering insulin to himself. I think I realized that my dad has definitely become more dependent on my mom to keep him up to date and safe when it comes to his medication regime. I encouraged my dad to learn more about his medications on his own and gave him some verbal information about the medications I was familiar with.

After speaking with my parents, I spoke with some of my roommates. Half of my roommates are really into homeopathic remedies and alternative medicine. They would rather use essential oils to relax them or do meditation to help a headache. Although on the other hand, the other half of my roommates wouldn’t think twice before taking an Ibuprofen to cure a headache. Of these roommates, I asked them what the usual dosage they take are when they have a headache. I was surprised to find that one said 600 mg and the other said 800mg meaning they were aware of dosages. One of my roommates was aware that this medication can cause stomach ulcers and the other had no idea. Overall, I think this was an interesting experience, as I had the opposite results of what I had anticipated when it came to both my parents and my roommates responses.