Life With Chronic Conditions: When the treatment doesn’t work

No treatment is 100% effective for everyone. Failure rates and/or allergic reactions do happen.  However, it’s also possible that another factor may be at play, and it’s best to rule out the following before you definitely say a treatment doesn’t work:

• Some drugs take a while to reach their full potential. Have you waited long enough to make an accurate assessment?

 

• Are you taking the medications as prescribed?

 

• Drugs interact with food, other medications, and/or dietary or herbal supplements. Using one of the following drug interaction checkers, see if a supplement or food could be part of the problem:

-       Drugs.com

-       Medscape

-       Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

-       Rxisk

 

• Lifestyle habits, such as smoking, alcohol and/or drug use can interfere with a treatment's success

 

• Do you have other conditions which makes your case a bit more unique? Could you have an un diagnosed condition?

 

• Gender can make a difference. Women metabolize drugs differently in their livers then men and that’s just the beginning.

 

• Genetics can also be a factor. Pharmacogenetics studies the way that genes affect the body’s response to medications. Tests are available for people taking drugs for a variety of conditions including depression, anxiety, certain types of cancer and other diseases. Learn more about pharmacogenetics.

 

 

If it turns out the treatment isn’t working for you, consider the following:

• Discuss your experiences with your medical provider. They may have seen this with other patients and may have other recommendations including a  “plan B,” a different approach to your situation. Your provider can be a big help in determining why a particularly regiment isn’t working, so make sure they are part of the team early on.

 

• Talk about your experiences with support group. You can learn a lot at a good condition specific support group. People will often have practical suggestions for problems you may be encountering.

 

• Consider changing providers: Sometimes a change in medical provider can make all the difference. If you are looking to your primary care provider to treat a specific condition, you may receive more appropriate care from a specialist. Check out last week’s post Is My Doctor Right for Me? 

 

• Share your data: By registering with sites that share medical data, you may be able to learn of other approaches as well as clinical trials. Such sites include:

-       Patients Like Me is a free site which aims to improve the lives of patients by using combined data and real world experiences. Founded in 1998  to help a family member with ALS, it’s been serving all diagnosis since 2011.

-       Citizen is a free service that helps patients get more out of their health records. Platform enables patients to find better treatment options and allows them the opportunity to advance the research for cures. Citizen was founded by the former director of Apple’s Health Records in memory of his sister.

-       Disease specific registries: This is the list from the NIH.

 

• Consider a clinical trial. Patients consider clinical trials for a variety of reasons including: current treatment plan isn’t working; there is no treatment for their health condition; and/or they may be able to prevent a health issue.

-       What are Clinical Trials andStudies: From the National Institutes of Health

-       Talk to your provider about your interest. They may have a suggestion for a trial that may be appropriate for you.

-       FindMeCure  is dedicated to bringing clinical trials closer to patients.

-       Volunteering for research studies: 15 questions to ask