Learn to Read Your Prescripti... Video Transcript

Participants

, Gwen L. Nichols MD

Summary

In monitoring your CML, it's important to know the drug you're taking, how much, and how often. When you get a prescription, you'll focus on how many tablets you take, and how many times a day.

Webcast Transcript

In monitoring your CML, it's important to know the drug you're taking, how much, and how often. When you get a prescription, you'll focus on how many tablets you take, and how many times a day.

If you look at your prescription bottle, you should first find the name of the drug. The common drugs for CML include: Gleevec, Myleran, Hydrea, Cytosar. Some patients take an injectable drug called Roferon-A.

To work with CML Medical Monitor, you'll need to know your drug dosage. It's usually a number that follows the drug name on your prescription, and is usually given in terms of milligrams, or mg.

So for example, your prescription may say "Gleevec," followed by its generic name, "imatinib," the dose, 400 mg, one time daily. That means your bottle contains 400 milligram tablets of Gleevec, which has the generic name, imatinib. You're instructed to take one tablet, by mouth, one time daily.

To enter this drug into CML Medical Monitor, you would select "Gleevec" from the medications menu, and 400 mg tablets from the dose menu, one tablet from the quantity menu, and once daily from the times per day menu. So your dosage would read, "Gleevec, 400 milligram tablets, one tablet, once daily." Check one last time to be sure that the information is correct, then click on "Submit."