How To Reduce The Meds Your Take With Your Own “Medication Audit”
More than four in ten adults 65 and older regularly take five or more prescription medications, nearly double the rate from twenty years ago. More medications mean more chances for something to interact, duplicate, or simply outlive its usefulness, and most people have no one keeping the master list except themselves.
That's what a medication audit is: not a doctor's job, a you job, done before you ever walk into an appointment. Start by gathering everything in one place, every prescription, over-the-counter medication, and supplement you actually take, not just what's on file somewhere. Write down what each one is for and who prescribed it. If you can't answer why you're taking something, that's exactly the kind of item worth flagging.
Look for the obvious red flags: two medications treating the same thing, something prescribed for a condition that's since resolved, or a supplement you started years ago and never stopped. You're not diagnosing anything, you're just building an honest, complete list.
Here's the part that matters most: this list is meant to start a conversation, not end one. Never stop or change a medication on your own, some are genuinely dangerous to quit abruptly. Bring your list to your doctor, your pharmacist, or your next Annual Wellness Visit, and ask directly whether everything on it still earns its place.
We'll cover how a pharmacist-led medication review works, often at no added cost through Medicare, in the next post. For now, the list itself is the whole assignment.