Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Polypharmacy . . .

It is not uncommon for patients who come to us after going elsewhere, mostly quacks to have multiple medications with them. Most of the time, the medicines will all be non-essential stuff

Yesterday, I had a patient who sort of broke all records for the number of medicines that he was taking. I counted a total of 21 medications. He has been having fever, cough and breathlessness since the last 2 weeks. 


The 21 medicines included 7 multivitamins, 2 antibiotics, 4 anti-histamines, 2 antacids, 2 bronchodilators, 3 NSAIDs and one cough syrup. Interestingly, there was no paracetamol. 

Regarding the diagnosis, that would be in my next post . . . 

3 comments:

  1. 7 multivitamins! If it was not so tragic, it would be laughable.

    Unfortunately it is not just quacks but also persons with MBBS degrees who precribe so many medicines. I don't know if it is because they lack knowledge or it is because their clinical skills are poor or there are other reasons. I have seen a person with fever who was given 2 antibiotics and plus an antimalarial. This seems to be the marketing era and we doctors seem to be easily influenced by the medical reps telling us what to prescribe.

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  2. What did he end up having? I didn't see you post that.

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