In many cases, turning up at your physician’s and leaving with a prescription for medication is a common occurrence which doesn’t require any additional thought on the part of the patient. After all: it’s part of the responsibilities of a physician (and the regulatory bodies which monitor both them and the pharmaceutical industry) to ensure that the drugs delivered to patients are high-quality, safe and effective. But in some cases, there may also be some due diligence for you to do – especially on the quality aspect. This article will explain ways in which you can be on your guard against low-quality medicine.
Is it prescribed?
Perhaps the first question to ask yourself when it comes to working out the quality of your medication is to think about how you sourced it. In theory, the only surefire way to almost guarantee the chances that you will receive good quality prescription-level medicine is to get it prescribed for you by a qualified physician and then dispensed by a licensed pharmacists. There are strict protocols around the development of medication: pharmaceutical companies cannot just create whatever they please, and rigorous testing has to be carried out. Organizations like the Food and Drug Administration oversee the process. If you’ve had your medication prescribed to you by a professional it’s unlikely to be of poor quality.
Is it recommended?
But not all medications for ill health fall under the prescription banner. Many useful medications are available over the counter or on the web, and for that a different approach is needed. Here, it’s often the job of a pharmacy assistant or a website to recommend which exact medical products are the best quality. Reputable Internet information sources that are not themselves selling the medication can be your friend here, and everything from a list of the highest CBD strains to an article looking at the more effective and fast-acting skin creams can be found with just a quick online search.
Is it safe?
Finally, there are some circumstances in which people can find themselves considering ingesting medication which is neither prescribed nor recommended. This might happen in a situation where there are no obvious ways to treat the condition, or where people are priced out of legitimate medical care and seek alternative remedies on the Internet. In this situation, it’s best to exercise extreme caution. If you have any reason to suspect that you are buying unsafe medicine, perhaps through reading reviews or even just an instinctive feeling, it is better to not take the risk and to find an alternative approach.
Determining the quality of any sort of medication can be a tough job, especially if the obvious tests for quality – such as seeing whether or not a prescription is required – cannot be carried out. But there are some ways to do it: from using reputable online sites to get recommendations to putting safety first when acquiring medication from other sources, there are always ways to be sure that your medication is of the required standard.
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