The Common Meds & Supplements That Can Cause Bothersome Interactions

We’ve talked before about the potential dangers of taking medications one does not need:

Are You Taking PIMs? Getting Off The Overmedication Train ← “PIMs” = “Potentially Inappropriate Medications”

Often, this does not come from misdiagnosis or hypochondria or just some odd desire to take medications, but rather, it happens when one medication (statins are a great example of this) causes a bunch of side effects, and these can then lead to a “side effect train” whereby the patient then has to take something else to treat the side effect, then something else to treat the side effect(s) of that medication, and so on, until they are taking an increasingly large stack of medications.

You can read on that in detail, here: Statins: His & Hers? ← because adverse side effects are much more common for women (and the benefits typically fewer/smaller for women) than for men.

Or more generally, here: The Meds Most Likely To Produce A Dangerous “Prescribing Cascade” In Later Life

But what of medication and supplement combinations?

When people try to self-medicate lupus…

…or even sometimes succeed, or even sometimes have meds/supplements prescribed by their doctor, it’s easy to end up with medications that can interact with each other in a troublesome way.

When it comes more specifically to lupus, per a recent study, researchers (Dr. Sarah Patterson et al.) found that 80.9% of 451 adults with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) used at least one supplement, while 55.9% used two or more.

Use was more common among older participants, those with higher educational attainment, those taking five or more prescription medications, and those with greater healthcare use in general.

Most were common supplements: for example, vitamin D was used by 64.1% of participants, followed by multivitamins at 45.2%, calcium at 29.7%, vitamin B12 at 10.6%, and iron at 9.3%.

However, of these, 29.5% of participants were taking a supplement-medication combination with potential for an interaction, with potential interactions more frequent among those taking multiple medications, those with greater SLE disease damage, and those with recent primary care visits.

You can find this paper itself, here: Prevalence of Dietary Supplement Use and Potential Medication Interactions Among Adults with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

And to help avoid making such mistakes whether or not you have lupus, see: Do You Know Which Supplements You Shouldn’t Take Together? (10 Pairs!)

Want to learn more?

For a much more in-depth treatment of lupus management, you might like this excellent book we reviewed a while back:

The Lupus Encyclopedia: A Comprehensive Guide For Patients & Healthcare Providers – by Dr. Donald Thomas et al.

The “et al.” in question? Jemima Albayda, MD; Divya Angra, MD; Alan N. Baer, MD; Sasha Bernatsky, MD, PhD; George Bertsias, MD, PhD; Ashira D. Blazer, MD; Ian Bruce, MD; Jill Buyon, MD; Yashaar Chaichian, MD; Maria Chou, MD; Sharon Christie, Esq; Angelique N. Collamer, MD; Ashté Collins, MD; Caitlin O. Cruz, MD; Mark M. Cruz, MD; Dana DiRenzo, MD; Jess D. Edison, MD; Titilola Falasinnu, PhD; Andrea Fava, MD; Cheri Frey, MD; Neda F. Gould, PhD; Nishant Gupta, MD; Sarthak Gupta, MD; Sarfaraz Hasni, MD; David Hunt, MD; Mariana J. Kaplan, MD; Alfred Kim, MD; Deborah Lyu Kim, DO; Rukmini Konatalapalli, MD; Fotios Koumpouras, MD; Vasileios C. Kyttaris, MD; Jerik Leung, MPH; Hector A. Medina, MD; Timothy Niewold, MD; Julie Nusbaum, MD; Ginette Okoye, MD; Sarah L. Patterson, MD; Ziv Paz, MD; Darryn Potosky, MD; Rachel C. Robbins, MD; Neha S. Shah, MD; Matthew A. Sherman, MD; Yevgeniy Sheyn, MD; Julia F. Simard, ScD; Jonathan Solomon, MD; Rodger Stitt, MD; George Stojan, MD; Sangeeta Sule, MD; Barbara Taylor, CPPM, CRHC; George Tsokos, MD; Ian Ward, MD; Emma Weeding, MD; Arthur Weinstein, MD; Sean A. Whelton, MD

The reason we mention this is to render it clear that this isn’t one man’s opinions (as happens with many books about certain topics), but rather, a panel of that many doctors all agreeing that this is correct and good, evidence-based, up-to-date (as of the publication of this latest revised edition all so recently) information.

Want to learn less?

If the aforementioned 848-page opus seems a little too overwhelming, then you might prefer:

The Lupus Solution – by Dr. Tiffany Caplan & Dr. Brent Caplan ← a much slimmer tome; just 182 pages 🙂

Take care!