The more meds you take, the more likely you’ll end up in the ER

Every day more and more seniors are being rushed to the hospital because of side effects from drugs.

They’re not the kind of drugs you’d get from a guy on the corner, but at your corner drug store – quite legally, with your doctor’s blessings.

And those seniors in the ER had been taking their prescriptions according to instructions — because, as it turns out, there’s really no safe way to take multiple meds.

Those are some of the frightening findings about prescription meds recently published in JAMA, which also revealed the top three most dangerous drugs regularly prescribed for seniors.

Not seeing the forest for the trees

You’ve heard about the opioid epidemic, but it’s much more than that. What’s going on is a prescription drug crisis that’s so big, it’s practically invisible.

With the number of drugs seniors take these days, it’s almost a given they’ll end up in the hospital sooner or later as a result.

A new study by several CDC scientists found that not only are seniors ending up at the ER from drug reactions at a rate over three times higher than younger people, but those figures have been rising astronomically during the last decade.

And it turns out that the life expectancy in the U.S. is on its way down, too – not up. According to an editorial accompanying the new study on drug side effects, that’s due in “large part” to the use of prescription meds.

But if you think you only have to worry about the side effects of any given drug, it’s not that simple. Another study out of Australia found that if you’re taking two meds, your chances of suffering an adverse reaction goes up by 13 percent.

Take four drugs and it jumps to 38 percent – and for seven or more, you’ve got a whopping 82 percent increase.

But if doctors are aware of the danger, why do they give these meds out like candy?

According to experts from the VA and Vanderbilt University Medical Center, too many doctors can have their fingers on the Rx pad for any one patient. There can be cardiologists, rheumatologists, liver and blood experts and numerous other specialists — plus your primary care doc, all doing their own thing. And if there’s anything a doctor is hesitant to do, it’s to discontinue a drug that another one has started you on.

But even when physicians are familiar with a patient’s history and meds, it can be almost impossible to coordinate all the drugs that are being prescribed. That’s something the authors called the result of a “fragmented health care system.”

And the three drugs most likely to land you in the ER are the same risky ones that were identified a decade ago.

For those 65 and older they are:

• Blood thinners,
• Meds for diabetes, and
• Opioids for pain

For kids, antibiotics were most likely to send them to the hospital, followed by antipsychotics, which are commonly given off-label to children for ADHD.

Look, it’s hard enough to stay safe when we’re taking just one drug! And if a team of doctors can’t manage to protect us from multiple meds, how in the world are we supposed to do so on our own?

It all comes down to the fact that unless you’re taking a round of antibiotics, once a drug is prescribed, chances are you’re on it for life.

That’s why it’s vital to round up any and all meds (including OTC ones) you’re taking, put them in a bag and take them with you to your doctor and discuss how to stop as many as you possibly can.

Your life might very well depend on it.

“Drug side effects have led to increased ER visits in older Americans” Ed Silverman, November 22, 2016, Stat, statnews.com