Do you study package inserts before taking a medication?

Yes. I have had adverse reactions to OTCs.
I prefer to be prepared to know what is a possible side effect and what an actual adverse reaction would be.

For me, it depends on the medication, whether or not I’ve taken it before, and what type of medication it is. I don’t take anything regularly except Synthroid or Levothyroxene, which is generic Synthroid. Other than that, I may occasionally be prescribed an antibiotic, but very rarely. Knock on wood, I’m healthy but if the doctor prescribed something for me, I’d probably google it.

Either I fully research a drug (usually online) or I take my doctor’s advice. Sometimes I get a little information from other patients with my condition, and I will trust that. I tend not to trust the advice of people without my condition.

With medication, it’s generally an issue of cost vs benefit. How bad is your condition and what are the consequences of letting it be untreated vs how bad are the side effects and what is the likelihood I will experience them.

I take meds that can destroy my kidneys. On the other hand, I have a condition that could cause me to kill myself. I got pretty close to killing myself. My kidney problems will take decades to occur and then I might get a kidney transplant or two or three, and it might not even happen, anyway.

I do have shaky hands, and when I was depressed, I hated that. But that went away. Then again, I did stop taking some of the other drugs I was taking and I’m still doing fine. I hope to stop the lithium in a year or two, as well. I also have meds that make my ankles swell up all the time. That is annoying. But not enough to make me risk high blood pressure.

The thing is with most drugs there are usually alternatives. If you don’t like one set of side effects, you can ask your doctor to give you another drug. That might treat you better.

So if I go to the doctor to get advice, and we discuss the medication options and go over the possible side effects, and decide together which drug to try, then I’m generally going to try it. If I don’t think I’ll try it, I probably won’t buy it.

Sometimes the boredom gets so extreme that I resort to reading.

However, usually I assume that if the epileptic shock and death that they foretell is severe enough I’ll notice.

@wundayatta I often find people look at me like I am mad, when I ask about side effects. So I feel uncomfortable asking. Since I have the drug already, perhaps I can phone and ask if there are alternatives? Or chat to the pharmacist? Who will probably say it will be fine!

Yes, talk to your pharmacist. But also look the drug up online. They have more information than the inserts do, sometimes. It might tell you how often those side effects are experienced.

If your doctor looks at you nuts when you ask, it’s time to get a better doctor, if you can. Although I don’t know how things work in SA so well. Here in the US, we have been fighting to get doctors to be more patient centered and to treat us like we have brains. It’s a battle, but there are good doctors who are respectful of patients.

Nah! I usually look it up on line. The print is so damn tiny! Plus its easier to look up specific things. I’m not a chemist and I hate when they give you pages of how and what the chemical make up is and at the very end or the middle. Do not take if allergic to the following, or if taking this or that medicine and list the possible side effects.

Yes, I want to now what side effects to watch for.

Never touch inserts.

I read the inserts so that I’m aware of what side effects to look for, and whether it says if I should consult my GP if I experience them.

On the whole I’ve found very few medications have given me side effects. I had an allergic reaction to an antibiotic once, which gave me hives all over my face and body. And an anti-depressant I took caused dreadful nausea.

I think they have to list all possible side effects even if very few people have had them, just to cover their backs. If lots/most people experience side effects, especially really nasty ones like seizures, the drug wouldn’t have got past licensing.

I had to stop taking anti malarial pills when in India as I began to feel sick. If I hadn’t known this was a possible side effect things might have got worse before I stopped.

Of course. That is why I’m currently taking no medications. The way I look at this is that doctors do not prescribe medications to me, they recommend them. I then find out as much as I can about the offered drug to see if I’m willing to accept the good, bad and ugly aspects of the drug in question. In other words I’m in charge of my health. Not the doctor and a drug has to do more good than harm before I’m willing to take it.
It is so sad to see patients that are taking medications and they don’t even know what they are taking or why they are taking them.

I agree @gondwanalon but of late, I have tried various homeopathic medications and it just made things worse. So I feel a bit in a pickle at the moment.

I always read the inserts and I look up any additional information I can find regarding the clinical trials for any medication my doctor prescribes. Usually I can intuit the frequency of side effects by going to the drug website and looking for the prescribing information (which usually prescribes the details like 1/50,000 had seizures while on the medication), etc.

I was wondering though, is there always an alternative medication for the one prescribed. Say for example I asked for another one, with less side effects there would be an alternative?

Yes, I read the inserts, and I am also very phobic of medicine. I can relate to what you’re experiencing, I refuse to take most medication as a result. For me, it’s anything with cardiac implications – increase/decrease in blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, etc…. then that medication goes in the trash faster than you can say “oh hell no.”
I definitely don’t recommend breaking pills, I’m sure you know that many pills have a time release coating, and it can be even more dangerous to break them.
I don’t know the answer to how frequently side effects actually happen, I just wanted you to know that you’re not the only one.
I think it is extremely difficult to find any medication that doesn’t have terrifying potential side effects listed, and I think that (if you live in the US) the constant bombardment of advertisements about ailments and the medication being hocked for them, along with the enormous list of potential risks is a big deal. Magazines, TV, billboards, everywhere we look we are confronted with illness and medication, and a reminder that living every day is a huge and dangerous risk. When you have huge drug companies being sued for lying in clinical trials, and bribing doctors, it’s no wonder people become afraid.

I read the inserts. Sometimes the possible side effects seem pretty out there – a cold or flu is caused by a virus, but they were listed under possible side effects because some test subjects got sick.

Sure, especially those molecular diagrams that explain everything logically.

Are there alternatives? Well, let’s take bipolar disorder. My support group had a psychiatric nurse in to talk to us. She told us there were more than 200 different combos of drugs used to treat bipolar. She actually named some specific number which I have now forgotten.

She urged us to be very proactive and discuss any side effects with our shrinks, and to try different things. All the drugs have possible side effects. But not everyone experiences the side effects from each drug. You have to keep trying until you find a set of meds that works with the minimum side effects. That can take a while, since it can take a month or two for some of these drugs to start to have an effect.

I’m sure it is similar for many conditions besides bipolar. There are only a few conditions where there is only one med currently to treat it.

I read them so I know the risks and can know to look out for them, but I don’t stress out about it.

Usually it says on the insert how common the side effect is. The list of side effects will be divided into two groups, common and rare. I put the rare ones out of my mind. Your doctor will have determined that your need for the medication is greater than the risks. Of course you shouldn’t trust doctors blindly and should weigh the pros and cons on your own, but in general doctors don’t prescribe medication that commonly have dire consequences. They won’t even get passed through the FDA if that is the case.

Generally if I need medication, I don’t have much of a choice – I need it. If there are risks, there’s really no point agonizing. One of my medications has a rare side effect of cancer. You can bet I’ll be on the lookout for any unusual symptoms, but I won’t waste my time worrying about it.

A lot of pills are not meant to be broken into pieces, so be careful about doing that.

OK went to two pharmacists and they said “Even regular pain killers have side effects, it won’t happen just take them” Thanks for the advice @DigitalBlue . I am in a bit of a high anxiety state now as I don’t want to take it.

I might post a question on the actual pills, and so on to get more advice specific to the pills and the condition.

With all the medications I currently take if I were to read all the inserts I’d be cross eyed by now. So to answer directly no I do not read them.