You may not get the full effect of your medication if you fail to take it on an empty stomach. The stomach is considered empty about one hour before a meal or two hours after a meal.
If your bottle says "take with food," that means that your medication should be taken while you are eating or perhaps a few minutes after. Medications are labeled that way for many different reasons.
Usually food protects the esophagus and stomach from the irritating nature of many drugs. Believe it or not, many drugs can stick to the esophagus and begin to dissolve before getting to the right place. This can lead to a perforation or ulcer. Even eating a snack and washing down your medicine with a full glass of water can protect you from experiencing abdominal cramps, nausea or vomiting. Taking more than one medicine with the same active ingredient could result in getting too much of that ingredient, which could damage your liver or lead to other serious health problems.
Doctors and pharmacists often use abbreviations or terms that may not be familiar. Here is an explanation of some of the most common abbreviations you will see on the labels of your prescription medications:. Unwanted or unexpected symptoms or feelings, such as upset stomach, sleepiness, and dizziness, that happen when you take a medicine are called side effects.
Some side effects happen just when you start taking a medicine. Some happen only once in a while. But other side effects may make you want to stop taking the medicine. Tell your doctor if this happens. He or she may be able to prescribe a different medicine or help you deal with side effects in other ways. Talk to your doctor about any side effects before you stop taking any medicines.
Your doctor may have tips that can help, such as eating a light snack with your pills. You may want to talk to your doctor about switching to a new medicine.
Taking medicines on an empty stomach means that you should take your pills 2 hours before you eat or 2 hours after you eat. With refinements over the years, this technique has become the standard for assessing the rate of gastric emptying. Newer results have shown that a normal stomach should be 90 percent empty after four hours. The difference between this standard and the earlier study probably reflects differences in foods. Solids take longer to digest than liquids; fats take longer to digest than protein or carbohydrates.
The US Food and Drug Administration incorporates these data, standards and thousands of drug-food studies into actionable recommendations.
When the instructions say to take medicine on an empty stomach, how long do I have to wait after eating for my stomach to empty? Can I still drink while waiting? For some medicines, having food or liquids in your stomach can result in poorer absorption of the drug or an upset stomach.
It generally takes 4 to 5 hours for the stomach to empty after a full meal and a bit less after a snack or liquid, though it varies depending on how much and what kind of food you ate. After taking the drug, wait at least 30 minute before ingesting anything other than plain water, to give the body time to absorb the medication.
Get Ratings on the go and compare while you shop.
0コメント