Death by Pharmacy

 

If you’ve been following The 100 Year Lifestyle for any period of time, then you already know that it’s your chiropractor who has the real prescription for health. You also know that we don’t believe that drugs make you healthy.  Plus, there is actually a myriad of ways that drugs can actually harm or cause death. What are we talking about? It’s called death by pharmacy and is an important conversation, particularly because October is designated national “Talk About Prescriptions” month.

Medicine to Die For

In the US every year over 9,000 people die from prescription medication error. According to a recent report, that figure doesn’t take into account the hundreds of thousands of patients who suffer adverse effects from taking the wrong medication or taking medication in the wrong way.

The Los Angeles Times reports over 5 million pharmacy errors occur in the state of California yearly. When they say “pharmacy error,” they are encompassing a lot of possibilities.

Errors

The error could be a system failure including but not limited to transcription inaccuracies, being unaware of patient’s allergy history, or poor professional communication.

Other errors include wrong prescribing, wrong time, improper dose, wrong rate, failing to look at drug interaction, or just giving the wrong prescription to the wrong patient.

Causes

The “causes” of these errors are many and varied. They include:

• Use of expired product or improper storage resulting in deterioration of product.
• Incorrectly prescribed duration of medication.
• Compounding errors or otherwise incorrect preparation such as diluting a product to reconstitute.
• The above, as well as other things, can lead to incorrect strength of medication.
• Incorrect timing regarding medication absorption.
• Incorrect dosing can lead to under dosing, overdosing, and misdosing.
• Incorrect dosage form such as immediate-release instead of extended-release.
• Lacking patient education resulting in incorrect patient action. For example, taking medication on an empty stomach when it is prescribed to be taken with food.

Human Error

For the most part, these are human mistakes. Close to 75% of medication errors are attributed to pharmacist or physician distraction. Specifically, regarding pharmacists, the most common causes are said to be workload, drug names that are very similar combined with illegible handwriting, being interrupted, lack of support staff, and insufficient time to counsel patients.

In fact, according to a 2021 survey of California licensed pharmacies, 91% of chain pharmacy employees reported that they did not have sufficient staff to provide adequate patient care. This fact, however, didn’t dissuade Walmart as it recently asked 16,000 of its pharmacists across the country to reduce their hours and take pay cuts in a company cost-cutting effort. Could this be related to the $3.1 billion settlement Walmart agreed to pay for its role in the opioid drug crisis?

Just Say No

Clearly, if you are taking a prescription medication, you need to advocate for yourself. Ask questions, read all the literature, make no assumptions. If you are taking more than one medication, specifically ask how those medications will interact with any new medications and verify dosage and duration.

Of course, the best way to avoid polypharmacy and the myriad of potential life-threatening problems associated with prescription medication is to live your 100 Year Lifestyle.

 Your 100 Year Lifestyle

Support your body’s natural health, alignment, balance, nerve supply, and ability to heal with chiropractic care, healthy nutrition, appropriate exercise, along with necessary rest, sleep, family, and community.

Remember that chiropractic care, unlike most western medicine approaches, keeps the body in working order. It removes any blockages to the nervous system that are the root cause of disease.

Keeping a symptom out of sight doesn’t constitute a cure; masking a symptom doesn’t mean you’re healed. If you are defining your health with the use of pharmaceuticals, you need to reconsider your healthcare team of advisors!

Want to keep this conversation going? Find a 100 Year Lifestyle provider near you today!

The preservation of health is easier than the cure for disease.

 D.D. Palmer, Father of Chiropractic