6 Tips for Patients To Avoid Getting Into Medical Trouble

medical troubles

Well, I am starting to feel better and am making daily progress.  In a few days I will be able to tell you all about what I went through.  This has given me some things to think about. Like how much medicine can you really stock?  The amounts of antibiotics and the types I have been given were huge, there was no way I could have stocked them.  In a real TEOTWAWKI situation.  My life would have depended on some alternative treatments and the will of the Lord.  I will explain more later about medical troubles.

Now here is a guest post on 6 Tips for Patients To Avoid Getting Into Medical Trouble that I found to contain some useful information.  Particularly the part on prescriptions, home treatment, and being discharged.

One in every seven patients faces the consequences of a medical blunder in a medical facility that leads them to get into medical trouble. The blunder may not necessarily be life-threatening, but still counts towards medical malpractice and may lead to even more trouble for the patient and his or her health.

Making mistakes is just another part of human nature. In a typical healthcare system, these mistakes often result due to ineffective doctor-patient communication primarily from the patient’s end. Here are some ways with which you as a patient can reduce your chances of facing medical trouble

Communicate your meds effectively

One of the biggest mistakes that most patients make is that they often fail to communicate all of the medicines they’ve been taking – or are still on. The result is obviously drastic as doctors just might end up making misjudgments based on things about the patient’s medical condition that they are completely unaware of.

Medicines can be tricky – especially with their side effects. When you visit a doctor at a medical facility, make sure that you mention all of the medication that you have been taking or are currently taking including over-the-counter medication, prescriptions from prior checkups, and any nutrient supplements. In fact, what would be even better is for you to carry them along with yourself – if not the medicines, then the prescriptions at least. This would help your doctor better understand your current medical condition and would also help him to improve further diagnostics on you.

Get as much information out of your doctor

Doctors generally know a lot more about you than you do especially if they’re working in a healthcare system that has medical records of your previous and current health. And that is the problem as a number of patients generally tend to not know more about themselves. Moreover, they don’t even bother with getting enough information from the doctor for their own benefit. Somehow it’s usually about just getting their hands on a prescription that satisfies them on a personal level.

Truth is, that’s not enough. Medical questions – or trying to get as much information you can out of your doctor is never enough. The more you know about your own health, the better it will be for you to sustain the quality of your life. Think of it as vital general knowledge – very vital general knowledge that you need to avoid getting into medical trouble because you were unaware of certain things that you were not supposed to do. Here’s a starter’s list of a number of questions that you should be asking your doctor to understand your medical condition.

What is the medicine, test and/or treatment for?

How many pills of this particular medicine am I supposed to take in a day, and for how many days?

Are there any side effects of this medicine or treatment?

What do I do if the side effects show up?

Will the medicine or treatment interfere with other dietary supplements that I am already taking?

What food, drink, or activities should I avoid while taking this medicine r undergoing treatment?

How long will this treatment last?

What’s in store for me after the treatment?

You might consider acquiring a lot of this information in writing so that you don’t forget – particularly side effects, ways to counter them, and dosage.

Communicate your medical history effectively.

A patient’s medical history encompasses a handful of medical conditions and experiences the patient has suffered to date and those which still continue to affect their health. While mundane things like the flu and the common cold can be left out, infections like chickenpox and STDs, chronic conditions that have been successfully or partially treated like cancer and cardiovascular disease still hold a significant amount of relevance to a patient’s current medical health and further diagnostics cannot be without keeping such conditions in mind.

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And just as not telling your doctor about the medication that you are currently taking can lead to some serious consequences, not telling them about your medical history too can lead to some serious diagnostic errors. When you visit a doctor, it is important for you to share any and every information about your health with your doctor without assuming that he or she may already know everything. This information may include things like, food allergies, asthma, diabetes, heart conditions, or anything that the doctor may not be able to tell by looking at you. Sharing this information is vital as it will only make.

Demand to be in safe hands.

There has probably been a lot spoken about hand hygiene in hospitals all over the internet. But most of that has been done from a general point of view highlighting the same point – to prevent the spread of contagious infections from one environment to the other. Of course, that is true. But have you ever looked carefully? Probably not; because if you had, then you may have noticed that often health practitioners fail to sanitize their hands at time – not intentionally, but probably because it just casually slips out of their minds. So what do you do in such a situation? You take matters into your own hands.

While in a medical facility, never overlook the possibility that you could still contract a contagious infection even though the best efforts are being made to keep every patient safe. Always ask your healthcare attendants – doctors and nurses included – who will touch you and whether they have sanitized their hands or not. Even better, make sure they do it in front of you. It may sound offensive, but sometimes the simplest of things tend to be the most commonly ignored. Hand-sanitizing alone can prevent the spread of a number of contagious infections within a medical facility that might contribute to worsening your health by adding to your medical trouble.

Don’t be too overcharged on getting discharged.

A lot of patients tend to worry more about how long they’ll be staying in a hospital or medical facility than the medical treatment itself. Maybe they’re a bit too concerned about medical bills, or maybe they just don’t like the atmosphere in general. In fact, getting discharged can be as complicated as getting admitted into the facility. Just because you’re going home, that doesn’t mean that you’re done with your treatment; there’s even more waiting for you – at home.

A number of patients pay very little importance to acquiring a proper home treatment plan often in the sheer excitement of being discharged from the hospital. True, medical facilities aren’t amusement parks, and the food is definitely not even worthy of a single star by a typical food critic, but it is more than important for you to understand the treatment plan your doctor prescribes for you to follow at home. This includes everything from diet plans to medicines, scheduling you next doctor’s visit to finding out when you can return to your normal routine. When you’re at home, you won’t have a nurse or a doctor to check you up after regular intervals – you’ll be pretty much on your own, and if you’re careless with your home treatment plan, all of your efforts just might end up going in vain.

Does your doctor write well?

It’s a well-known fact that most doctors have terrible handwriting – really terrible handwriting. Usually the first few letters are decipherable, and what follows is a long line of ink that finishes with a dot or an underline. But if you can’t read the prescription your doctor just gave out to you, you probably wouldn’t know what you’re supposed to ask for at a pharmacy. Not to mention, the pharmacist too would have difficulty in comprehending a badly written prescription slip. This could very well lead to you taking the wrong medication and suffering some potentially life-threatening consequences.

Choosing your doctor on the basis of his or her handwriting is obviously out of the question – and so is sending them back to writing practice in school. But what you could do is tell your doctor to write out the prescription he’s giving you as clearly as possible so that neither you nor the pharmacist has difficulty in comprehending it.

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3 thoughts on “6 Tips for Patients To Avoid Getting Into Medical Trouble”

  1. I am guessing your affliction was viral, rather than the bacterial. My nephew’s son caught it when he was just a couple of months old. I am unclear how it was introduced as the baby’s folks are so picky about anyone handling their baby. He recovered fully. I understood that the bacterial version is much worse. I hope you are well.

    1. Thank you for the kind thoughts. I had a combination of viral meningitis with a very badly infective sinus. so as a result I still had to take a major amount of antibiotic and will be on it for another ten days. I also picked up some additional loss of hearing from the internal swelling in my head, but they think that it will come back.
      Howard

  2. I carry a list of my medications in my wallet all the time. I,ve been rushed to the hospital a number of times and it has saved alot of time checking in.

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