Managing Medication Changes Around Daily Living

Let’s get straight to the point - medication changes can be brutal. With each medication impacting each individual so differently, it sometimes feels impossible to prepare for the havoc a medication change can wreck on our already sometimes rocky lives.

Here are some practical ways to help make medication changes easier and less disruptive to your daily life.

Preparation is key to management.

It’s not often that we actually know when a medication change is going to be suggested or a new medication is likely to be added to our treatment so preparing in advance may feel impossible, but there are a few key things we can do in advance to set us up for success for the possibility.

First up, be sure to ask your physician about the side effects that are most commonly found with the medication you’re beginning to take or are increasing. Even if you’ve been on the same medication for a long period of time, a change in dose can sometimes have a dramatic impact on your body and how functional you are as you begin to adjust again.

Home Life

• Prepare cleaning lists in advance - You should already know what you need to do around your home for the first few days you’ll be on your meds. Whatever needs to be done that is non-negotiable, try to do before you start taking your meds OR make sure it is the largest priority on your list once you start. Determine what is necessary to be completed and what can be pushed off for a few days. Although this seems like a really small unnecessary step, this can help keep overwhelm and anxiety to a minimum when you already have a plan in place if the medication change hits you harder than you anticipated.
  

• ASK. FOR. HELP - This may seem like an obvious one but it’s one of the things we do least. Ensuring that your family members or roommates understand that you’re on a new medication and it may impact you in certain ways can help decrease negative reactions or expectations during your transition period. When asking others for help, GIVE ideas on ways those certain people can support you most. Don’t leave them guessing! A perfect ask is for help with the non-negotiables listed earlier if you start feeling unable to complete them.
  

• Have a plan with your physician - Have a plan with your physician in case the medication symptoms become unmanageable. Sometimes just stopping the medication can cause the need to start from the very beginning again when perhaps lowering or splitting the amount you’re taking for an easier transition would be just as beneficial. Knowing what you should do going in can alleviate the stress of not knowing what to do in the moment, especially if you have a physician that can be difficult to get ahold of.
  

• Be honest with your fears - When starting or changing medications, being upfront and honest about the fears you have with the medication can do a lot to alleviate some of the friction to even beginning to start or increase your dose. Be honest with your physician and have a game plan in place or at least the conversation started for any side effects that may cause you emotional stress or anxiety. Recently, I increased one of my meds that may be causing weight gain. My physician agreed to help monitor my weight to see what we can do about it and to help find out if the medication is the cause or something else. Just knowing he’s in my corner has alleviated a lot of the anxiety I had around originally increasing a medication that I know can help me but is known for unwanted side effects.
  

Work life

• FMLA - If your employer has 50+ employees, they are required by law to offer FMLA to employees. Getting a head start on utilizing FMLA by filling out and submitting the forms before you need to use them can help ensure that you have appropriate protection with your job before you may need it due to a medication change. This can help protect your job with any time you may need off, whether it be a few hours or full days, while making changes to your medication. (As a side note, FMLA is a great resource for ANYONE struggling with a mental illness or mental health scare and can be used for a variety of things outside medication changes. I highly encourage everyone to look into their FMLA policy and become familiar with what’s possible for you before you need it. Not understanding my own employers policy made navigating my illness at one of it’s worst times much more difficult than it had to be.)
  

• Accommodations - This one might be difficult one to implement quickly if you don’t already have accommodations in your workplace (depending on your employers process for requesting accommodations), but if you do have them already, getting an additional blurb added to help support you during your medication changes can really be the difference between success and failure with your work life. The things you request would be dependent on the medication you are taking specifically and it’s known or common side effects, but some example of one that I already have through my employer: late start times for an extended period of time for medication that is likely to make you drowsy or not as functional in the morning or more breaks worked into your day for times when things like nausea or drowsiness if you need to take a medication partially through the work day that has that known side effect.
  

• If you don’t have FMLA or accommodations worked out with your employer, and you would rather not disclose any information about your health or your medical needs, simply letting your supervisor know that you’re going through a transition period at home and are requesting some leeway with laxity between your start times or needing small breaks in your work day can go a long way in giving you what you need while not giving them information you’re not comfortable with giving out. Being honest with your supervisor about your needs are or could be before the change happens can help make your medication change less disruptive to everyone’s schedule and is likely to put you in a situation where you’re not receiving the same amount of pushback if you had waited until the last minute to ask, giving everyone the chance to plan accordingly and showing your respectful of your job responsibilities but also the impact you may have on others during this time.
  

This may seem like a lot to do for a medication that you might not have any issues with, but knowing in advance what you can do and what your options are can save a lot of the initial anxiety and stress that sometimes causes us to reluctantly take our medication or sometimes not start taking it at all.

Being proactive about what you need before the problem strikes can make all the difference in a medication change being a horrible experience or just a minor blip on the radar.