Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Non Prescription Tips From Your Richardson Compounding Pharmacist

By Lilia Slaybaugh


Your local Richardson compounding pharmacist has a great deal of experience with medications. When a custom prescription is needed, this is not a problem. These pharmacists can also provide advice on your supplements and over the counter products too, and this can be of great benefit to you and your family.

Before you shop for any OTC or over-the-counter drugs, make sure that they will not interact with medications you are currently taking. For example, some people with cardiovascular problems take prescription drugs to keep the blood thin. However, if these drugs are taken with common medications like aspirin or ibuprofen, it may greatly increase their effectiveness and make blood too thin.

Perhaps you have hypertension and are taking drugs to keep it down. It is vital to understand any interactions from supplements or other common medications. Some diet supplements like green tea extract have a significant amount of caffeine. This raises blood pressure and can make your medications less effective.

Some supplements should be avoided altogether when you have certain medical conditions like depression. This is especially important when taking a common SSRI drug like fluoxetine. Several popular supplements (like SAMe and St. John's wort) may interact with these drugs. In fact, they could cause serious emotional or physical problems. One must also be careful with herbal sedatives like Valerian.

Even something as simple as a calcium supplement should be avoided in certain cases. For example several antibiotics are known to interact with calcium and one should even avoid dairy products while taking them. Calcium may also interact with some thyroid medications.

Many common OTC drugs have potentially dangerous side effects. Any time you are not sure about a supplement or drug, you can turn to your Richardson compounding pharmacist for reliable advice. Pharmacists have a working knowledge on the action of drugs in the body and can tell you if certain mixtures should be avoided or not.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment