How Following Advice Of Canadian Health&Care Mall Experts Cuts Down Health Risks
The message that rings throughout the pages of Canadian Health&Care Mall is loud and clear, but its importance is so high that we, authors operating in the healthcare field, feel the need to reiterate some very important key points about getting medicated safely. Do not take drugs at random, always talk to your doctor, any drug can be dangerous when misused or applied without careful consideration of the original directions! The article below will illustrate how following the advice of healthcare practitioners, those quoted at Canadian Health&Care Mall website in particular, helps you increase therapeutic benefits and avoid the risky pitfalls.
Prescriptions and medical advice
The demand from a citizen of a medicine that can be sold only after prescription without having it is sometimes a matter of discord with the pharmacist. A fairly recent legislation has introduced some novelties that aim to overcome many misunderstandings between pharmacists and clients.
Many people believe that prescription is essential only for free delivery of medicines and that, accordingly, if the drug is paid for, it can also be obtained without a prescription. This belief suggests that the citizen has insufficient consideration of the nature and danger of drugs. In fact, the medical recipe is not a useless bureaucratic task invented to ignore people or losing time in the medical facility, nor a legacy of a time when the doctor indicated the components of a formulation that the pharmacist was preparing at the pharmacy.
Prescription is an important document, a precise order that the patient’s trust doctor sends to the pharmacist to deliver the drug to the patient and is therefore an indispensable tool to ensure that the right medication arrives at the right person. The doctor is the only professional possessing the skills needed to correctly identify a disorder and is the only authorized drug prescription. The pharmacist cannot replace the physician but can supplement the prescription with advice on the correct use of the medicine. The pharmacist, for its part, can only recommend and sell prescription drugs for treatment of small disorders, usually resolved within a few days. They are so-called self-medication or advice medicines, such as certain painkillers, nasal decongestants, cough and laxatives.
Drugs that should be used with caution
Another chapter about the medicines the pharmacovigilance organs have been started lately; it is necessary once again to make an important premise. When the drug is considered so dangerous to the point that the damages far outweigh the benefits, the prescriptive bodies are activated to withdraw it, at least so hopefully, by reviewing it before resuming it or deciding its end.
When pharmacovigilance organs cause adverse effects, perhaps unknown in the first marketing phase, the pharmacovigilance organs require the manufacturer to include any indications of any adverse phenomena that have occurred with that molecule. During the study to detect any damage caused by the action of the substance, it may also be foreseen to be suspended, as well as similar and more intense information is given to physicians, invited to prescribe that particular molecule only where there is the actual need. This premise is important because the very fact that a drug is meant to be “dangerous” does not mean that it is totally rid of goodness, if we consider any phenomena that are known today and at the time of placing on the market were completely unknown.
That said, let us provide your with an example of what happened with anti-diabetes drugs such as Avandia (Rosiglitazone), which, according to the information provided by the pharmaceutical company that produces it, is indicated only in the oral treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus combination in patients with insufficient glycemic control after oral monotherapy with metformin or with a sulphonylurea at the maximum tolerated dose: in combination with metformin only in obese patients in combination with a sulphonylurea only in patients with metformin-intolerance or where the use of metformin is contraindicated .
The molecule last February was the focus of the FDA for revision because of the cardiological problems that had been observed in the use of the substance. For the sake of correctness we must say that already in the internal leaflet the producer mentions issues related to the use of the product, including the exclusion of those patients who also use insulin, where the risk is to accentuate cardiological problems. The fact remains that the latest data refer to any increased risk of myocardial infarction and cardiovascular death in some patients with type 2 diabetes who had taken the drug.
But it is not over, there are also referrals to situations related to some female patients who, treated with Rosiglitazone, have encountered a significant increase in fractures of the foot, hand and arm (humerus) compared to patients treated with metformin (Glucophage ) or glibenclamide (Euglucon). One study showed an association between the highest doses of first-generation and gliburide sulfonylureas and the increased risk of mortality; this report was not seen with Metformin. FDA did not miss reports of hemorrhagic and necrotizing pancreatitis after administration of the Byetta (Exenatide) antidiabetic drug, sometimes even fatal.
Promiscuous use of antibiotics pharmacy specialists in Canada warn against
Let us now have a look at something considered as trivial as antibiotics, and the free hand with which many patients self-administer them for a variety of conditions, starting from strep throat and continuing all the way to nasty STDs that they feel embarrassed to discuss with their healthcare provider. Canadian Health&Care Mall reminds you that no drug is safe when self-prescribed and used without careful consideration of benefits over risks ratio. a
Until the first half of last century, contracting pneumonia or an infection following a surgery meant serious life risk because there were no antibiotics. Things changed with the introduction of these drugs and in 1978 the World Health Organization (official website) declared that in socio-economic development countries, infectious diseases were no longer a problem with antibiotics alone.
But on September 21, the United Nations General Assembly has convened a meeting to address what has been recognized as the third health emergency after Aids and Ebola viruses: antibiotic resistance, that is, the phenomenon for which many antibiotics are become ineffective against infections. The reason is that the bacteria have developed strategies to defend themselves against drugs attack and have become “supernatural”. Have we sung victory too soon?
There are 4 million infections sustained by resistant antibiotic microorganisms registered annually in Europe in hospitals and causing about 37,000 deaths, according to estimates of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. In the United States, there are 380,000 deaths per year for incurable hospital infections. In Italy, hospital infections affect approximately 284,000 patients each year (from 7 to 10 percent of the inmates), causing 4,500 to 7,000 deaths. The most common are pneumonia (24 percent) and urinary tract (21). Many bacteria have also gained resistance to carbapenems, antibiotics used to treat infections from multi-resistant bacteria.
The main causes of antibiotic resistance, say experts, are the abuse and misuse that has been made of antibiotics for some decades. Italy is the fifth in Europe for consumption of these drugs and among the countries with a higher rate of resistant microorganisms. “We also use them when they do not serve, for example, in the treatment of viral infections, or we are abusing them for preventive purposes, especially in hospitals, or we take them without respecting medical prescriptions, for example at reduced doses or early disruption of treatment when the symptoms disappear and thus encouraging the multiplication of bacteria survived to the drug, “explains Giovanni Rema, director of the Infectious Diseases Department of the Higher Health Institute. The “best beasts” favorite victims are those hospitalized in low immune defense settings: in intensive care, in oncologic wards, undergoing transplantation, and so on. But even outside the hospitals nobody, in theory, is immune to the risks.
Among the most common are bacteriostatic antibiotics that block reproduction of the bacterium without killing it (for example, sulfamides, tetracyclines, macrolides, chloramphenicol) and bactericidal antibiotics that directly kill the microorganism (eg betalattamic – penicillin – , fluoroquinolones, rifampicin).
Canadian Health&Care Mall recommends for read: 7 Little-Known Facts about Antibiotics
Hospital transmission can be performed personally by air, through the hands of staff or using vein characters or assisted ventilation devices. The first weapon we have in order to stem the phenomenon is hygiene: it is important that doctors and nurses always squeeze their hands after attending a patient and before visiting the next one.
The superbatres have also been found in breeding and companion animals (dogs, cats, etc.) to which antibiotics are administered to the same classes as those used in human medicine, with the risk of transmission to humans through the food chain or coexistence. In Europe, unlike the United States where the phenomenon is widespread, only a couple of transmission cases have been reported for now. However, for some time now, in our farms, antibiotics can only be used to cure infections and not to prevent them (unless in the case of surgery), and since 2006 it is forbidden to use them as feed additives to accelerate the growth of animals.
Antibiotic resistance is a normal evolutionary process of bacteria, based on pre-existing antibiotic mechanisms, but which increase frequency with the use of drugs. In recent years, more and more broad spectrum antibiotics have been administered, capable of simultaneously acting on different bacterial species, with the result that there are few antibiotics capable of eradicating multi-resistant strains. They now use more selective drugs to target targeted therapies.
Advices from Canadian Health&Care Mall as for the safety of drug storage
Let us talk about minor rules that are too often considered unimportant and disregarded. If you are a careful reader of Canadian Health&Care Mall publications and instructions, you should have noticed that every drug description is endowed with storage conditions instructions. Let us talk more about those.
What is the expiry date and why do medicines have one?
The composition of the medicines is subject to change due to time and environmental conditions (temperature, humidity, light sensitivity etc.). These variations are “natural” and, to some extent, do not affect the effectiveness of the drug. The expiry date indicates exactly until a medicinal product is definitely stable, ie it maintains the declared pharmacological properties and properties (with a 10% tolerance tolerance), as long as it is stored appropriately (see below). The period between the date of preparation of the medicinal product and the expiry date is defined as the period of stability and may not exceed five years.
Where can you see the expiration date?
The expiry date is always indicated on the outer pack (bottle) of the medicine and almost always on the blister (for tablets and capsules) or anyway on the inside pack. It is always advisable, however, to preserve the medicines in their original outer packaging.
What happens to the medicine after the expiration date and what happens to us if we take an expired drug?
In most cases what is observed after the expiration is a decrease in the pharmacological properties: the drug does not become toxic, but it can be harmful, since by taking it we will not get the desired effect. Only in a few cases (some antibiotics belonging to the families of tetracyclines and penicillins) toxic products have been observed after the expiry date even under conditions of proper storage.
On the packaging of all medicines it is always written that the expiration date refers to the product that is properly packaged. But what does it mean in practice?
The most important rules to preserve to preserve a medicine are:
- never remove it from the original package
- read and observe the storage conditions in the package leaflet and, in doubt, seek advice from the pharmacist
- do not expose it to strong ambient conditions (light, moisture heat). For example, it is wrong to store the medicines in the kitchen or in the bathroom, as well as keep them in the car so that they are at your fingertips!
What is meant when the expiration date is indicated only with month and year (eg 05/2012) without the date of the day?
It is understood that the medicine can be used under safe conditions (if properly stored, see above!) Until the end of the month.
And when is the box open?
The expiry date indicated on the packaging continues to be valid for medicinal products in unidose packs, such as blister packs and monodose preparations, for example, whereas it should no longer be considered as valid from the opening for multidose packs: syrups , eye drops, ointments, drops, sprays, etc. Each of these formulations has its validity once opened and we will examine one for a short time.
Why cannot I throw away the medicines expired in the trash and how should they be disposed of?
Medicines contain chemicals that, if dispersed or not appropriately differentiated, may be hazardous to the environment. Once expired or unusable drugs are classified as special waste. For this reason, medicines that are out of date or which are no longer suitable for consumption should never be thrown into the garbage, but they must always be disposed of properly, ie depositing them in special containers or ecological stations.
More tips for better health from Canadian Health&Care Mall:
