Getting to WISE & WELL

With over 25 years of experience in pharmacy and counseling countless older adults on their medications, I have seen many medications started but not many stopped. Many medication lists have 5, 15, even 21 medications. This website is meant to share ideas and the benefits of deprescribing. Share your deprescribing stories and learn more about deprescribing. Let’s help each other learn about optimizing medications to keep us WISE & WELL.

To begin, let’s start with the definition of deprescribing which is the practice of stopping, reducing, or switching a medication to a safer alternative, overseen by a health care provider, so as to optimize your medications for safety and effectiveness. From 65 years to 85, 95, and 105 years our bodies change and we may need to change our medications to keep us safe and healthy. Medications that have benefitted us in our 50’s may not be safe in our 80’s and beyond. Thankfully, medications help us to live longer lives. Before we add more medications, let’s be certain the medications we are taking are not causing us harm or side effects that we think are new problems. Sometimes stopping, reducing, or changing a medication is the better option.

Share Your Story

Share your Overmedicated-to-Deprescribing Story.

Whether you are a health care provider, caregiver, patient, or friend. This space is for all to share!

It helps to share stories so that we can all learn from each other. You may know someone who has been on blood pressure medication for years and started to have lower blood pressures and began feeling lightheaded. How did the story go from there? Was a medication reduced that may have been causing the low blood pressure or did the person fall and end up in the emergency department?

Perhaps you know someone who has fallen a number of times. Eventually some medication or combination of medications were identified as possible risks to falls and were deprescribed resulting in the individual no longer falling.

Add your stories to the comment box below. Please note that you will be sharing these stories on the internet, please do not include full names or any personal information that may identify the person or story you are sharing. Thank you for sharing!

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