spiritual growth

Who knows your WHOLE regimen of medicine?

Posted on by Michelle Fritsch, Pharm.D.
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Let your doctors and pharmacist know your WHOLE regimen.

Which of your providers or pharmacists knows your WHOLE regimen of your medicines? When you go to your doctor you are likely asked about the medications you take. Some practices will ask you to include that information on a piece of paper on a clipboard in the waiting room. Some will hand you a computer with a list of questions that include your medicines. Still others will have the person checking you in ask you about your medications.

Do you take a list of all of your medications with you to the doctor?

Your doctor needs to know the names, the strength, the dose, and exactly how you take each medication.

Rather than try to memorize and remember all of this, make a list before you leave home.

  • Some people take pictures of each medication label and keep them in their phone.
  • Some people use the ‘Medical ID’ app on their smartphone.
  • Some people keep a list printed and in their wallet where it can be easily found by emergency personnel if needed.

Do you include all medicines prescribed by all doctors?

Many of the people I meet think their doctors talk to one another and coordinate their care. Although this is the desire of your doctors, it often does not happen. Your doctors and other providers find it hard to catch up with one another. Even if they work for the same health-system, important details and explanations are often not shared.

  • Include all medications coming from all of your doctors on your list.
  • Don’t assume one doctor explained the latest changes to the other doctors.

Do you include all of the medicines and other substances you take?

All of the substances you take have the potential to interact with each other. This means they can be dangerous when combined. If no one knows each substance you take, then those interactions cannot be checked.  It is important to have a thorough screen of your WHOLE regimen.

Include these items even if you only take them once in awhile.

I highly encourage you to include all of these on your written list.

  • Over-the-counter pain medicine (e.g. Tylenol, ibuprofen, Aleve, aspirin)
  • Stomach ache or acid reflux medicine
  • Headache medicine
  • Allergy medication
  • Eye drops
  • Nose sprays
  • Cold, flu, congestion medicines
  • Constipation or diarrhea medicines
  • Medicated creams or ointments
  • Vitamins
  • Supplements
  • Herbal therapies
  • Marijuana
  • Illicit drugs (at least tell your doctor about these)

I am finding that the people who make the decisions about your prescription medicines do not know all of these important facts. The over-the-counter, herbal, vitamin, and other substances can have side effects, cause problems, and interact just as prescription medications can.

Consider all of these to be MEDICATIONS! Let your doctors and pharmacist know your entire list – your whole regimen!

For more information about the importance of your complete medication list, or for a detailed review of your medication list, please contact us at www.medsmash.com.

BIBLICAL APPLICATION

Just as there are a variety of medications that may be needed for overall health, there are a variety of things we need to include in our lives for our spiritual health. What are the components of your spiritual life?

In what ways do you acknowledge, praise, worship, study, talk with, share, enjoy, and spend time with God?

I liken the prescription medications from your primary doctor to Sunday worship and owning a Bible.

The specialist medications are like the Bible study, Sunday School, and other special short term studies.

What about the components that you choose for yourself from the smorgasbord of options? Do you include prayer, worship music, contemporary Christian music, daily devotions, meditation, accountability partners, online resources, or other choices?

Do you select a wide variety of options?

Do you stick to one or two?

Do you limit yourself to the Sunday morning selections?

Colossians 3:12-17 (MSG) gives several ideas about the many ways you can keep God active in your life.

So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.

There are so many ways you can get to know God better. Even if you have been studying and worshipping for decades, there is more to learn and more love to experience.

Then there is prayer. There is real power in prayer.

James 5:13-16 (ESV)

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

Prayer that acknowledges God and His will and timing can do great things. Never overlook the power of prayer.

It is my hope this has inspired you to add some more elements to your daily walk with God. The God who created the Universe and who loves you beyond measure looks forward to each and every remedy you select to stay close to Him and know Him better.

Blessings,

Michelle

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I have diabetes – let the pills fix it!

Posted on by Michelle Fritsch, Pharm.D.
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Diabetes – let the pills fix it

 

Medications to treat diabetes have revolutionized the treatment of this condition. The number of people with diabetes has been increasing for many years. So, a lot of emphasis has been put on finding new treatments. The number of new types of medications to treat diabetes has greatly increased even in the last five years. This is GREAT news!

So, with all of these new and the older tried and true treatments, diabetes is in good control, right? Surely with all of these options, diabetes is a problem of the past.

Unfortunately, it’s more complex than that. The same things that are causing this increase in number of people with diabetes need to be at the core of the treatment. So what are these things?

At the core of diabetes management

The primary link to the growing number of people with diabetes is the growth of the population. I’m not referring to number of people, I’m referring to SIZE of people.

Obesity has been on the rise. As a population we have gained significant weight. This is one of the main risk factors for diabetes. It is also a risk factor for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, and stroke.

So, besides medications to treat diabetes, changes in diet, exercise, and weight are key parts of treatment. Diet and exercise changes are the best way to manage weight. They are not always the most fun and certainly not the easiest. There are all sorts of ‘quick fix’ schemes for weight management that sound very enticing. But, after all is considered, none of these are as safe or effective as true, daily, positive changes in food and movement.

Daily changes

Move every day. Spend less time in a chair and more walking, participating in dance or games, cleaning, or doing other things that are active.

Diet changes are best made in moderation. Sudden, huge diet changes are very hard to sustain. A few simple changes can make a big different. Try some of these:

  • Avoid second helpings
  • Eat a bit smaller portions
  • Cut back on white bread, crackers, pasta
    • Replace with those with higher grain content
  • Eat some more vegetables in place of bread and sweets
  • Eat some more fruit in place of sweets

It is important to make changes that you can make new habits. Keep up these gradual changes over time.

Be good to yourself. If you occasionally slip and fall back in old habits, pick yourself up, forgive yourself, and try again. As you adopt healthier habits, your weight decreases, and you move more, you will start to feel better and more energetic. That will made it easier to continue to make positive changes.

If you want to talk about more details aobut how you can start making these changes, contact us at www.medsmash.com.

BIBLICAL APPLICATION

Just as it is tempting to let pills fix medical health, it is tempting to let Sunday church fix our spiritual health.

If you go to church most Sundays, you have all you need for spiritual growth and development, right?

Peter had some very insightful instruction about spiritual growth.

1 Peter 2:1-5 ESV

So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

I encourage you to read the rest of this chapter of 1 Peter.

2 Peter 1:5-8 ESV

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 3:18 ESV

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Another verse with some instruction about spiritual growth is:

2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Growing in your faith is a lifelong quest. With each new thing you learn, your perspective changes and you realize there is so much more to learn.

Sundays, church, and fellowship are incredibly important! And so are all of the other ways you spend time with God and the Bible and other growth opportunities.

Blessings,

Michelle