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Skipping Medication After a Heart Attack is Risky |
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Harvard Heart Letter | May 2008
Heart Beat
Dangers of skipping medications after a heart attack
As
wake-up calls go, a heart attack is a big one. You might expect that
people who survive one would do whatever they can for their hearts, at
least right after getting out of the hospital. That isn’t necessarily
the case. In a study from Ontario, Canada, about 25% of heart attack
survivors didn’t fill their prescriptions for potentially lifesaving
heart medicines such as beta blockers, statins, anticoagulants, and
aspirin. That simple act mattered. Those who didn’t fill any of their
prescriptions were 80% more likely to have died within a year than
those who filled all of them.
Four out of five people with
heart disease don’t take their medications consistently, and the
problem is worse among those who need pharmaceutical help the most —
people with diabetes, kidney disease, or heart failure.
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Taking several medications every day isn’t an easy task. Here are a few strategies that can help:
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Ask your doctor for once-a-day medicines, along with less expensive generics to ease the financial burden.
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Use a pillbox with compartments for each day.
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Position your pills where you can’t miss them, like on the kitchen counter or next to your toothbrush.
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Report what you think might be side effects instead of suffering silently (and maybe skipping medications).
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Try
an alarm. A host of programmable watches or pillboxes can let you know
when it’s time to take a pill. You can also program a cell phone or
personal digital assistant, or subscribe to a service such as CareText
or OnTimeRx.
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