“The half life of a medicine is the length of time it takes for a drug’s concentration to be reduced by one half.”Every medicine has a personality. Let’s say your son has been prescribed a new medicine and it is not going very well. Every evening he complains of nausea and dizziness. It hasn’t worked as well as you’d hoped either, and it’s beginning to look like this medicine trial is over. Before you give up, make sure you are doing your best to meet the needs of your teen’s medicine.
Every pill has a life. If it requires food, hopefully a nice meal will be waiting for it when it arrives. If all goes well, it becomes absorbed, activated, and does its job. Eventually, it fades away, only to be replaced by a fresh pill with a new life. Some medicines have very short life spans. The anti-anxiety medicine Xanax acts quickly but dies out after only a couple of hours, whereas Klonopin, a medicine in the same class of drugs, activates slowly but remains in the system for up to a couple of days. The psychiatrist considers these factors when determining the type of coverage the patient needs.
Let’s return to your son’s new medicine and take a closer look at its characteristics. You see that it is taken twice daily, telling you that it has a relatively short life. If your son takes his first dose at 6 a.m., before school, and he isn’t taking his second dose until around 9 or 10 p.m., there will be a gap of several hours in his medicine. The nausea and dizziness he experiences may be withdrawal symptoms. Have him space his doses twelve hours apart and the discomfort may disappear.
If a drug is taken once a day, have your teen take it at the same time each day. Try to make it a convenient time, preferably when the teen is at home, and carry a small supply in your handbag or car in case you cannot get home in time. If the medicine requires food, carry a snack along or go to the nearest drive-through restaurant if you’re not at home.
This vigilance is especially important in the first month or two. The longer your teen takes a medicine, the less bumpy his symptoms will be, until they eventually disappear. Respect your medicine’s modest needs, and it will reward you with long-term stability.