HIGHWAY TO HOME AND HEALTH

     When starting a new medication, drug-safety strategies are important when operating a car or other powerful equipment.  “Much of the information is on either the medication label or the attached information sheet,” says Dennis Bryan, past president of the Illinois Pharmacists Association, including potential side effects.

     The recommended amount to take and frequency of dosage and if on a full or empty stomach is also important, and what to do if you accidentally miss a dose, or how you feel when you begin taking a dose, and how quickly or slowly you metabolize drugs, especially when you are taking a given medication for the first time.  Most warning labels won’t tell you when it is safe to get behind the wheel of your car.  “A good rule is to avoid driving for the first week after starting a new prescription, or changing the dose or how it interacts with other drugs,” advises Richard Marottoli, an associate professor at Yale University School of Medicine.  “Even a small amount of beer, wine, or hard liquor can unexpectedly cause severe intoxication.”

     Between 1991 and 2010, prescriptions for opioid analgesics, a type of narcotic painkiller, increased sixfold from 30 million to 180 million.  Similar side effects that can cause drowsiness, blurred vision, dizziness, slows reflexes, and can impair judgment and physicians should be warning patients.  Check with your pharmacy as well.  The AAA foundation is developing an online program called Roadwise Rx which will allow people to research the driving-related effects of various drugs as a free service.  Hopefully, this Christmas or any other holiday will not find drivers behind the wheel while impaired and have a terrifying lesson or fatality.  After an accident from being rear-ended one lady was put on a narcotic painkiller for a few weeks and took a painkiller every night at 9:30.  One afternoon her back pain flared up while at work and she took her painkiller – on an empty stomach.  She almost got home safely, when her vision blurred and she could barely steer straight as she entered her driveway.  She veered on to the path beside it and heard a sickening thud.  Stumbling from her SUV she found she had run into a tricycle belonging to a three year old living next door.  “My neighbor’s son could have been on that trike – or my own son.”