Doctors and pharmacists
Pharmacist
The most accessible health professional you have, and the right person for anything about how medicines are taken, not just what they are.
A pharmacist can usually be spoken to the same day without an appointment. In ALS/MND they are particularly useful for a problem that comes up early and often: swallowing tablets. Many medicines come in liquid, dispersible or patch form, and a pharmacist can work out which of yours do and speak to your prescriber about changing them.
How you reach this person, and who pays, depends on where you live. Set your country in Location and Compass will show what applies there.
What they can help with
- Alternatives when tablets have become hard or unsafe to swallow
- Which medicines can be crushed or opened, and which absolutely cannot
- Giving medicines through a feeding tube, which is not simply the same medicine
- Interactions, including with supplements and over the counter remedies
- Reviewing everything you take, and advising your prescriber on what is no longer helping
- Dose packs and timing, when the routine has become complicated
When you might meet them
- As soon as swallowing tablets has become an effort
- When a feeding tube is placed, because every medicine needs rechecking
- When you are taking several things and are not sure they still all make sense
- Before starting a supplement, because it is a real question and not a trivial one
Things you could ask about
- Does any of this come as a liquid, a patch or something dispersible?
- Which of these can I safely crush, and which cannot be?
- Can these go through a feeding tube, and does anything change?
- Is anything here interacting, or no longer worth taking?