Post your thoughts on possible solutions. Share your successes, big or small. Be communicative. Take your prescribed meds & keep track of them. Ensure you have a partner to discuss your progress and to help with your journey. You will stumble or have set backs, which are all a part of the process. Sometimes we have to step back in order to move forward, but the goal is to keep moving forward. All good things take time.
Possible Solution-Medication Monitoring
Karly Long was not a bad girl trying to be good, she was an ill girl trying to be well. She died @ the age of 29 trying to manage and understand her disorder.
Penny Long has been consumed by thoughts of how to improve an imperfect medical system since the deatl of ther daughter Karly in 1999. After years of struggle, confustion and abnormalbehaviour, Karly was diagnosed with Rapid Cyclying Bipolar Disorder with possible Attention Deficit Disorder; she was told it would be hell to live with and it was.
While struggling to understand her diagnosis and seek treatment, Karly died from adverse effects of her mulitple prescribed medications. For five years before her death, during her treatment, Karly became increasingly ill; she suffered while trying to cope with the symptoms of her disorder. She experienced escalated feelings and behaviours that were sometimes erratic to the point of being dangerous. At times, she was given large doses of a variety of medications and told by physicians to return later; sometimes she couldn’t. She would experience serious side effects, depression, mania and illness. Oftem times she could not function. Karly ultimately became addicted to prescription medications.
Throughout her life, Karly and her family explored a variety of options ranging from treatment facilities to medical doctors. Karly’s family wanted to understand her condition, help her manage it and witness her living a full and healthy life. Karly had the support of a cargin, concerned and involved family, she lived ina world class city and she had the desire to get well yet she didn't live to realize her simple dream of haning children of her own. Wellness remained out of her reach.
While realizing it is too late for Karly, it is in her memory, and the membero of the multitudes of others lost oo soon to prescription medications, that the Longs share Karly’s story and ask how further tradedies can be prevented. With this in mind Long’s idea for a medication monitoring system was born. Long is not an expert in statistics, she is not educated in medicaitons and/or their side effects, however, due to her own personal experience and communications over the last ten years with people who have similar stories to that of her family, she offers forth a soluction to a very real issue. It is Long’s goal to encourange person with the formal training and knowledge that she lacks to come forward and help realize this plan.
Most Canadians will testify to the fact that our medical system is severely stressed. Doctors are unable to educate, inform and provide intensive follow-up care that is needed to protect vulnerable people, such as Karly, who are made more vulnerable by the effects of powerful mediations. As such, Long sees the need for the creation of a third party that would offer support to patients. Long wished to be clear about her proposal: she is not leading a crusade against prescription mediations; rather she acknowledges their usefulness and is in favour of their safe application. The mission is to impore pharmaceutical compaies, the manufacturers and providers of prescriptions and over the counter medications, to cimplete the chain of production and pescription with viligent support. Long sees the current lack of support as the reason Karly and countless others have lost their lives, and as a factor that is putting millions of people at risk.
The third party support and research team would consit of highly trained professionals with offices in accessible locations such as pharmacies. Members of the team would meet with the patients who have been prescribed medication(s) by their physician(s) for a mandatory follow-up to explain how to properly adminster their medication(s), privent and identify addiction; advise of any expected and/or possible behavioural/mood changes and side effects, and any relevant contraidications. Long came to include behavioural changes in her plan after hearing several stories of people feeling unwell, frightened, or shamed after takeing their medications and therefore not wanting to continue taking the prescribed dosage. Long firmly believes that medications have the power to alter behaviours and thought processes leading to self descructive behaviour, suicides, killings, and accidental deaths. Patients need to be aware of the potential devastating risks and have a body of professionals and accessible support to turn to if they are experiencing abnormal thoughts and/or feelings. It is therefore crucial that someone on the team be accessible at all times to coach, provide counselling, or suggest alternative treatments when applicable.
When the patient (of age) provides consent, the team could also liaise with family and/or friends that are willing and able to assist, thus strengthening the overall support system. This coach-patient relationship acould be similar to that of the sponsor participant in the Alcoholics Anonymous model. This relationship would be potentally lifesaving for anyone managing a chronic condition or illness with a continuous need for medicaitons at any age or stage of life. The team would be intimately aware of the patient and his/her progress with treatment and would be privy to such information as if a patient did not refill a prescription, for example, the coach would then contac the patient, determine the reasonand help develop a solution.
Scheduled visits when picking up repeat or new prescriptions would allow for monitoring vitial signs, behaviour and mood changes. For some patients, blood and/or urine analysis could be necessary to be proactive in preventing any unwatned side effects or addiction and they would be identified, treated and or counseled. There would be a variance in the type of care needed as each cse is unique. All patients would be expected and encouraged to visit their prescribing physician regularly. The team would be continually updated and alerted fo any new side effects, complications and or contraindications of all medications. Physicians would in turn report any findings of their own.
It acknowledged that that creation of medication monitoring system would be a costly and time consuming undertaking as these skilled professionals would require extensive and ongoing medical and social servie training. Pharmaceutical companies that particpate and fund such a support service to its customers could potentially counter the cost of the program in that tragedies could be prevented and therefore their legal costs would decrease, patients who were taking medications in a safe and monitored scenario would hypothetically live long, healthy lives and therefore become long term customers of that company. Outsie of pharmaceutical companies, it would also alleviate stress and reduce costs for hospitals, police fire departments and 911 services.
These are ideas offered forth by a layperson; surely skilled representatives of the companies themselves and our government could find more ways of redirecting monies and resources to fund this program and creative ways to offset costs. It si clearly the humane and morally right thing to do. In the end the pharmaceutical companies manufacture and distribute medications and profit, rightly so, from them: it is therefore their responsibility to ensure that their products are no further harm to their consumers or the public at large.
To some this could seem like a great and difficult endeavour; it should not be. It should be a privilege – a reward and responsibility. It is an opportunity to improve the effects of medications, to grow and gain knowledge. It would benefit and protect the patient but most important of all, it would save lives. As a caring citizen of this country, Long looks to the government, to Health Canada and to all pharmaceutical companies and asks, “To what lengths will you go to save lives?”
Believe, it can be done.
