The Menacing Mathematics of Multiple Meds

http://chetday.com/multipledruguse.htm

This is an article about the number of proper drug tests that is needed for the question that each and every one of you should ask your pharmacist, "Are there any interactions between my drugs?"

Patients were frustrated with my answer, "I don't know."
Some were quick to angrily respond, "I thought you were the damn pharmacist who is supposed to help me."
I tried to calmly explain that while I know about the side effects of the individual drugs; at best, I make interpolations based on what metabolic pathways the drugs might share and what elimination systems might be involved.

The author of this article, Gary Craig, does the math for how many proper tests would be required for drug combinations.
"Here's how the mathematics work: If you take three drugs then adequate safety testing of the various combinations require seven separate tests. If you take four drugs the combination requres 25 separate tests. If you take five drugs it amounts to 121 tests. If you take ten drugs the number of required safety tests total 362,881."
My math says 3,628,801. (10x9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2+1)

The most drugs I dispensed to an individual was eighteen (the number of tests required is a number with more digits than my calculator holds). This year Host dispensed twenty-three drugs to an individual. There are many scary things about these situations to us. One of which is that people are still making decisions for themselves despite the stress their body and mind must be under.

So please the next time you make an appointment with a physician, please ask the physician to prescribe only minimal amounts based on your body weight and not what is the average prescribed dose. Ask what medication can be deleted from your therapeutic regimen. Give the deleted medication sufficient time to get out of your system before you imagine that you really want it back. Change lifestyles, diet and exercises to repair and restore your health as much as possible. Even if you must maintain your level of medication, a change lifestyle, diet and exercise may postpone inevitable decline that requires more medication.

Hippocrates charge to physicians to "First, do no harm" is good advice for each individual. Stop hurting yourself.