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When to take your medicine

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Timing your medication properly can be crucial to the success of any treatment regimen, whether it is to cure a life-threatening condition or simply to relieve bothersome symptoms.

When best to take medication depends on the active ingredient, what product form the medication is in, the nature and severity of the condition to be diagnosed, prevented or treated, as well as individual diet and lifestyle. The detail that your doctor or pharmacist often provides is about maximizing the effectiveness and safety of the medicine.

Getting so much of the active ingredient to be absorbed into the body can be an important goal with proper timing of your medication. Some drugs are better absorbed when taken with meals or certain foods, while others' absorption is inhibited when taken in the same way. Extremely little of an osteoporosis drug like Fosamax (alendronate) is already entering the body, let alone reaching the bones under fixed conditions from a single dose. This medicine should be taken with plain water and without food or other drink every week on the same day in an upright position at first rise. Already more than 99% of a single dose is excreted from the body under such conditions, and if the medicine is taken with food or at other times during the day, the amount absorbed may be further reduced by half or more.

Some medications may be safer to take with food instead of on an empty stomach. To better ensure the long-term safety of a class of painkillers known as NSAIDs, it may be advisable to avoid taking the medicine aspirin for example on an empty stomach and either take the medicine with or after food or with an antacid.

Active ingredients may require a specific dosing and timing strategy to be most effective. This is especially true for different types of antibiotics to treat infections. An antibiotic drug such as cloxacillin may require dosing four times a day to maintain effective blood levels in the treatment of a skin infection, while ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic of a different class that works differently, requires only one or twice daily dosing to treat a urinary tract infection. .

The product form can play an important role in when and how often a medicine is taken. Long-acting, delayed or sustained release preparations may work to release the active ingredients of a medicinal product differently or consistently over the course of a day, allowing the medicine to be therapeutic even though it is only dosed once instead of several times. the day. For example, in managing blood pressure, chronotherapeutic medication is designed to work with the body's natural circadian rhythm and, in fact, best tackle the maximum blood pressure that tends to occur upon awakening. Innopran XL (propranolol) can be taken only once a night before bedtime. Technology allows the release of the active ingredient of the medicine four hours after ingestion with the resulting maximum blood levels coinciding with the morning rise in blood pressure.

The nature of a medical condition can also help determine when it is best to take a particular medication. Cholesterol is synthesized by the body, often during sleep at night, hence the perception that it may be most beneficial to dose cholesterol-lowering drugs such as Zocor (simvastatin) or Mevacor (lovastatin) in the evening. Conditions such as migraines, fever and arthritis can have acute symptoms that appear unpredictable and can often require medication at any time of the day.

Incorporating individual dietary and lifestyle patterns often facilitates adherence to medication intake and can be crucial to effectively treating a chronic condition such as diabetes without unnecessarily reducing quality of life. To best control the condition, insulin injections may be administered as well as oral medications taken before, with or after food to coincide with specific expected increases in blood sugar levels. In consultation with the attending physician, oral medication may be measured for meals or scheduled for consumption either consistently in the morning or at night to facilitate lifestyle and compliance. 大田医疗

When specific drugs are used to moderate elements of diet and nutrition, it may be important to treat these consistently along with meals for the success of the treatment. A weight loss drug such as Xenical (orlistat) is often best taken with meals or times of food intake that involve the most consumption of fat, as these are bound by the drug and transferred from the body.

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