While prescription pain medication can ease the suffering associated with MS pain symptoms, it is important to understand the responsibilities associated with having these drugs in your possession. WebMD offers the following advice:
- Pills are actually little drug-delivery machines. They don’t work the way they’re supposed to when taken apart the wrong way. Scored pills should be cut only across the line. Those without scoring should not be cut at all, unless you’re specifically instructed to do so. When you chop the pills incorrectly, they may not work. In addition, they will taste bad when the coating is cut away.
- When your pills expire, throw them away! One reason is that pills stored at home start breaking down soon after their expiration date. That’s especially true of drugs kept in the moist environment of the bathroom medicine cabinet. If you take a pill that’s broken down, it may not work — or you may end up in the emergency room because of reaction to a breakdown product.
- When it comes to pain medication, sharing is a bad thing. Unfortunately, it’s very common for people to share prescription medications with friends, relatives, and co-workers. That person you share with may have a problem that keeps his body from eliminating the drug, or he may have an allergic reaction, or the drug may interact with a medication he is taking, with life-threatening results.
To learn more pain medication mistakes, go to http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/chronic-pain-10/9-pain-pill-mistakes.
source for this article comes from the MSFYi newsletter from the MS Foundation
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