Heart Failure Patients Warned About The Dangers Of Mixing Prescriptions

( By Carmen Heredia Rodriguez for Kaiser Health News)

Mike O’Meara’s life runs on a tight schedule.

Every morning, after a glass of juice and breakfast, the 70-year-old picks up his medication from a blue labeled tray his wife Beth prepared and gulps down 12 and a half pills.

At noon, he swallows three more.

Around dinner time, three more.

And before bed, he reaches for his nightstand drawer to grab his last doses of the day: seven and a half pills.

O’Meara has been diagnosed with diabetes, kidney problems and heart failure. He depends on 16 medicines — 26 pills a day — to manage his health. Taking a variety of pills is not unusual for older patients, but the American Heart Association Monday warned heart failure patients and their doctors that they need to monitor the variety of drugs because of the possibility of unintended consequences. Read article here……

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

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