MISUSE OF DRUGS AND POSSIBILITIES OF TOXICITY

MISUSE OF DRUGS AND POSSIBILITIES OF TOXICITY:  Drug toxicity is one of the negative outcomes of drug use today.  This fatal scenario has dramatically increases with increasing pharmaceutical products on the market and continuous use of traditional medications, and Over The Counter (OTC) medications.  The increase in pharmaceutical products is in fact not the problem but instead an advantage that, we stand a chance to win many microbial infections and disease conditions however, due to irrational use of such medical products, we stand high chances of getting toxicities form such products.  On this page, we are going to look at the way drugs can be misused by patients and or medical workers and the possibility to develop adverse effects and or toxicities form them.  If you have not been following me in the previous discussions, you may also want to read about;  Dynamics of drugs in the human body and then, Concurrent use of over the counter medications.

WAYS OF GETTING TOXIC EFFECTS FROM DRUGS:  There are several ways we can get toxicities from the drugs we use and most of them are patient/client related.  Although in rare scenarios drug toxicities can result from medical/health workers interventions, this is a limited case because in the health care settings and following the medical protocol, there is follow-up and carefulness from more than one individual making it hard for a mistake to be done by the whole team.  Below are some of the ways we can risk getting toxicities from the drugs we use.

1.  Simultaneous use of traditional medications and pharmaceutical products:  It is noted that throughout the globe in different communities, people tend to use traditional medications to cure various disease and for some, they really work out very well even better than some of the available pharmaceutical products.  The problem however comes that some of the traditional remedies that are used may contain certain ingredients similar to those in a given pharmaceutical product and therefore this may subject additional quantities of the same drug to the patient.  To understand the way this can lead to possible toxicities, it requires one to read about Therapeutic index/window discussed in our previous modules.  Also, it will be good to read more about my article about; Sources of drugs and pharmaceutical products.

2.  Drug-drug and drug-food interactions

3.  Unknown dosages of the drug...................

RELATED;

1.  DYNAMICS OF DRUGS AND THE HUMAN BODY

2.  CONCURRENT USE OF OVER THE COUNTER MEDICATIONS

3. THERAPEUTIC INDEX/WINDOW

4.  SOURCES OF DRUGS AND PHARMACEUTICAL PRODUCTS