Polypharmacy Reflective Essay

This polypharmacy teaching project has opened my eyes to the difficulty facing individuals who are prescribed multiple medications. Our patient was prescribed nine different drugs, however two of those were to be taken twice a day. That adds up to a total of eleven drugs to take daily. Taking eleven pills a day is troubling enough, but there also are specific instructions that must be followed for each medication. Some of drugs had the same instructions, though others did not. For instance five of the nine drugs simply said take one tablet by mouth every day. A more complicated instruction was for levothyroxine, which said: take one tablet by mouth every morning on (an) empty stomach. As one can see, polypharmacy sounds like somewhat of a task to live with. After my group and I created our seven-day schedule of outlined times to take the medications, I started taking them myself to experience being on the same schedule as our patient. Of course I did not actually take those prescribed drugs, I bought M&M’s as a substitute. Day one of adhering to the schedule started off poorly. I ate my breakfast as I always do when I wake up. Then when I sat down with my cup of coffee to
Complying to a set schedule with eleven medications to take was mind boggling and somewhat of an annoyance for me. Currently I take one prescribed medication before bed time every night to treat chronic daily headaches. Even having to take one pill alone is challenging in ways. My main struggle is remembering to refill my prescription in time. If I had to take eleven drugs every day I would need to have reminders wrote down on my calendar of when to get each prescription filled. Remembering to take every medication, getting the prescriptions filled on time, and complying with my medication schedule would be my goals if I find myself in a polypharmacy