Drug interactions

Last week an unfortunate and near death experience happened to me. After I finished my daily workout routine, I took my multivitamins with lunch and after a while my antibiotic (because of a bad cold I had caught).  It was a huge mistake, maybe the biggest of my life…  After a while my urine turned red and started to have awful pain on my right kidney. During my hospitalization I started having seizures but luckily now; I am alive but one of my kidneys has been shut down permanently…

Just joking I’m just fine! Thank God I never had an experience like that, but many people have because they have done one major mistake, they have taken different pills and have never checked possible interactions. The symptoms can vary from a small itch, to kidney failure or other serious permanent damage. If you take medication, it is mandatory to ask your doctor about possible interaction with other prescriptions you take and if you are not sure enough, don’t risk it no matter what! 

This time I am not joking and I am pretty serious, you should never ever combine different substances without first searching for possible interactions! It is your life of course, you can act as you wish, but I don’t think that risking everything for something is a wise choice.

In my situation indeed I have a problem and I have been prescribed to take Cipro (ciprofloxacin) which is a very strong antibiotic with a LOT serious side effects. During my medication (among other things), intense exercising should be avoided because you can have either tendonitis or tendon rupture which is a pretty serious situation. Because I had a persisting pain behind my knee from the day I started and although I tried to rest as much as I could but that didn’t help, I had to do something for the pain (stopping Cipro wasn't an option) and so I took Animal Flex (joint and tendon supplement). 

Right now I am a bit better but not 100% well. Before I combined Cipro and Flex I had at least a 5 hour search over the internet just to make sure I won’t have any problem.I found there was a minor side effect and so I took both in a day with 6 hours in between (after praying to God for a couple of seconds first though!).So Even if the interaction between two drugs is minimal to none, don’t take two at the same time. I would suggest having about 4 to 6 hours in between just to make sure.

Now a great site to determine whether the ingredients of two drugs, vitamins etc. or more interact is this: http://reference.medscape.com/drug-interactionchecker . You add the ingredients and as a result you get possible interactions and how dangerous they can be. Nevertheless I would suggest you to ask a doctor first, for you to be 100% sure.