by Dyan Mardlin

Created on: March 03, 2007   Last Updated: April 18, 2007

Medications are prescribed in a manner that allows for medicinal levels within the body to be met, without toxicity to the patient, while providing some form of treatment to be achieved by a patient. Wow, that seems rather vague, but when you consider certian characteristics of drugs it makes a lot of sense.
First, drugs must be introduced to your body at a specific dosage for your body to react. This is reaching what is called medicinal levels. This is when your body begins to feel effect of the drugs, even if only on a cellular level. The drug must be provided to maintain these levels. This is when it is important to take your medications at the same time each day. Some drugs leave your body quickly, and even an hour of time will effect the amount needed to maintain medicinal levels. Conversely, this is why taking them earlier than prescribed may lead to toxic levels of the drug within your body.

The second thing to consider is the purpose of the drug. It would be redundant to take a sleeping pill at lunch time, as it would become a nuisance to take your Lasix at bedtime. If the medicine causes drowsiness, or interferes in any way with your motor skills, it just makes the most sense to use it during hours of sleep. If a medication will cause excitability, increased amounts of urine volume, or any other conflicts with your sleeping, take it during your wake hours.
The last thing to consider is any specific instructions given by the drugs manufacturer. Some medications must be taken with food, or must not be mixed with other drugs. It is important to check the drug interactions before taking combined medicines. Some drugs even are contraindicated with some foods, or even juices- especially grapefruit. The most important instruction would be the prescribed timing. Most medicines are ordered in hourly intervals ie: every eight hours, or three times a day. When ordered as an amount of time or "every - hours" make sure the times are realistic to your life, not set in a way that you have to wake up at night to take it. When the medication is written in so many times a day, simply take the number of times alloted daily and divide it by twenty-four, giving you the amount of hours in between doses.

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