Track your medicines: Consumer Web Site of the Week
Being organized about your health care could save you from some potentially lethal side effects down the road.
Consumer Reports now offers My Medication Tracker, software you can download to your computer. Use it to enter info about your prescriptions, including when you started, the dosage and the price you paid for it.
When it's time to visit your doctor, you can print out a list with all the information so you won't be fumbling for details when he or she asks for them. That way the physician will have a clear picture of what you're ingesting to avoid reducing the efficacy of any one drug or worse, a harmful drug interaction. Or, maybe it will prompt a discussion of whether all the prescriptions are even necessary.
Don't forget to add information about any over-the-counter medicines or supplements you are taking, too.
As the comments note ...
... you *could* use spreadsheet software to record all this information. However, CR's program is password-protected to ensure your privacy.
The program was developed with a grant from the National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health.
(photo: Chiaki Kawajiri/Baltimore Sun)
