Know the parts of the prescription. There are certain pieces of information that your doctor will always include on a prescription. The doctor’s professional information, such as her name, address, and phone number, will be at the top of the form. In the upper section of the prescription sheet, there will be a place for your name, your age or birth date, your address, and the date the prescription is given to you. Below this, your doctor will write the relevant drug information.
»» This will include the medicine she is prescribing, the dosage, how many pills to take per dose, and how each dose should be taken.
»» There will also be information for the pharmacist about how much of the medicine to give you when your fill it the first time and …show more content…
There are other doctors, however, who will just write what you are supposed to have, such as “1 tab,” which indicates how much you should take.
»» After the amount per day, the doctor will write how to administer your medication. Each method has an abbreviation that is Latin based. Po means to take it orally, pr means per rectum or suppository, sl means sublingual or under the tongue, IV means injected into the vein, IM means injected into the muscle, and
SQ means subcutaneous or under the skin.
• Decipher how you should take the medication. Next to the dosage methods, the doctor will write an abbreviation for how often you should take your medication. This describes the number of times a day or week you should take your medication. Next to this, she will write any special cir- cumstances under which you should take the medication. This will indicate things such as the need to take the medication with food.
»» The description of how often you should take your medicine is abbreviated using Latin phrases just like the method. Qd means every day, od means once daily, bid means twice a day, tid means three times a day, and qid means four times a day. The abbreviation qam means every morning, qpm means