words Al Woods
When it comes to our lives and our health, we turn to healthcare professionals. We place our lives in their hands, follow their instructions religiously, and wait for the medicine to heal our bodies. But what do we do when the medicine that’s supposed to make us better, makes us worse instead?
There are many instances when a certain medication can make the patient sicker, whether it comes with the listed side effect on the package or something that hits out of nowhere. But how do you know what’s making you sick? What can you do in these instances?
Here are 4 things to do if your medicine is making you worse:
1. Consult Your Physician Immediately
If you start to feel sick, the first thing you should do is contact your physician. The more severe the symptoms are, the more urgent it becomes to contact them. You shouldn’t stop any medication, change it, or tamper with its dose on your own. Not only could this be ineffective, but it could also make your condition even worse. Contact your direct care physician or primary care provider immediately and have them assess the situation. As soon as you call your physician, they’ll instruct you to take certain actions, such as:
a. Add Another Medicine For Side Effects
If the sickness you’re feeling comes as one of the side effects associated with the medicine, which is quite common with many medications, then your doctor can prescribe another medicine to counter the side effects. Sometimes the medicine you’re taking can’t be stopped immediately or it will result in more severe side effects. Perhaps you’re taking a course of antibiotics and their side effects are making you sick, but you can’t quit an antibiotic course abruptly or you’ll risk becoming resistant to whatever infected you. In such cases, you should tell your doctor what’s causing you the most pain or discomfort, and they’ll order extra medications to control such adverse symptoms.
b. Change Your Treatment
Some people are more affected by certain medications than others. For instance, many painkillers contain NSAIDs, chemical substances that are known for both their potency and their strong side effects. The side effects can manifest as stomach pain and nausea in most patients, but patients more susceptible to stomach ulcers can experience bleeding, and kidney patients also experience severe kidney issues. If the medication doesn’t sit well with you, your physician can prescribe you other drugs that do the same purpose without making you sick.
c. Stop Your Medication
There are instances that your physician will find the wisest choice to be stopping your medications altogether. When the risk outweighs the benefits, then it’s not worth it. In these cases, they can discuss with you alternative cure methods that don’t include drug prescriptions, if that’s possible.
2. Seek Another Medical Consult
While you may feel tempted to take your doctor’s word for the illness you’ve experienced, the wiser course of action is to seek additional medical consultation. The physician whom you’d first sought might have made the wrong call, whether it’s due to lack of experience, insufficient testing, wrong diagnosis, or wrong medication prescription, or the fault might be found somewhere else entirely. Making sure that you’re getting sound medical advice is crucial to keep your body healthy.
3. Understand What Made You Sick
Taking insights from another physician can help you understand what went wrong, which can be explained by a few possible causes.
The first and most probable cause is that these side effects come with the medicine prescribed. Your first doctor might have already mentioned that, and the list of side effects are always listed in the pamphlet. Another probable cause is that you’ve failed to comply with the doctor’s instructions. You might have taken extra doses, tampered with your medication on your own, prescribed yourself another medicine that interacted with the one you’re taking, or any other form of inconsistency. If neither of these is true, then you should start looking into whether or not it was someone else’s fault altogether.
4. Contact a Prescription Drug Injury Lawyer
If you’ve reached the conclusion that your illness is a result of medical or pharmaceutical malpractice, then you need to take immediate action. Drug problems are some of the leading causes of injury in the U.S. and all around the world, so seeking experienced lawyers for serious drug side effects will help you preserve your rights and save others from facing similar issues. This is especially crucial to do as Big Pharma corporations have sufficient money to resolve many of the claims made against them, all at the expense of unsuspecting patients. There are also time limits when it comes to filing such claims, so you should act quickly.
You’ll have a right to claim compensation if your illness was caused by any of the following reasons:
a. Wrong Medication Prescription
If your primary physician had prescribed you the wrong medication for your condition, order the wrong dose, or even prescribed the right medicine but failed to check your history properly; and any of these were the reason you got sick, then they can be held liable for your illness.
b. Wrong Medication Dispensing
Sometimes the fault lies with the pharmacists that have dispensed your medicine. Perhaps they got the medicine mixed up with another one, they gave you a different dose other than that prescribed by your doctor, or they sold you an expired drug. If these are the cases, then they can be held liable as well.
c. Defective Medication
In some cases, the fault doesn’t lie with either your doctor or the dispensing pharmacist; but rather with the drug manufacturer. The drug itself could be dangerous without specifying the full side effects, the packaging might be wrong or misleading, or there might be a problem with the storage of the drugs that turned them bad.
When the medicine you’re taking makes you sick, you should never act on your own. Refer to your primary physician to know the best course of action you should take, and get a second medical opinion if necessary. You should try your best to understand what made you sick and narrow down the possibilities to reach the source of your illness. If you’ve reached the conclusion that your sickness was a result of malpractice from any of the healthcare sectors, don’t hesitate to contact a lawyer and file a complaint to get your rights for compensation.
