Medication Management in Columbia
Why Medication Management is Crucial to Your Care
We know that when you participate in decision-making about your mental health care, you are typically more satisfied with the care you receive. Collaboration ensures that you receive customized treatment that is based not only on your age, weight, and health conditions, but also on your lifestyle and daily schedule. This allows your medication treatment plans to be tailored specifically to you. Medications can require adjustment in dosage over time to get the desired effect. Through regular monitoring and following-up, we ensure that your meds are working as intended, with minimal side effects, and preventing medication interactions.
Medication management also improves your willingness to stay on the medication for successful treatment. Many people struggle with inconsistently taking their meds because of uncertainty or side effects. A management plan encourages you to stick with the prescribed regimen, manages the possible side effects, and can detect early signs of complications. Medication management, as offered in our Columbia office, is usually combined with other treatments like talk therapy to provide a more rounded approach to mental health care.
Selecting the Right Medicine
Selecting the right prescription depends on several factors, such as your diagnosis, the severity of your condition, and other conditions. While choosing the appropriate class of medication (such as antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications) may be straightforward, there is an art to choosing the right medication and the right dosage. Typically, you are started on a low dose, which is gradually increased to minimize the side effects and maximize the effectiveness of treatment.
Monitoring and Follow-Up
A large part of your medication management plan includes regular check-ins with our Columbia team. These follow-up appointments allow us to monitor your response to the medication and adjust the dosages when needed. It also allows the opportunity to track side effects and recommend ways of managing them. It can take several weeks for the medications to become fully effective. However, these opportunities are only available when you are followed closely in a tailored medication management plan.
Managing Medicinal Side Effects
Carefully developed plans help manage side effects using several key strategies. During your initial screening and medical history, we determine if you have any underlying health conditions or take other medications that could increase the likelihood of side effects. In nearly every case, you will initially receive the lowest effective dose, which gradually increases. This allows your body to adjust to the medication and reduces the potential side effects that may occur like nausea, drowsiness, or dizziness.
You are often asked to keep a log of side effects that helps provide insight into patterns or triggers and then informs decisions about medication adjustments or dosage adjustments. Sometimes, side effects can be managed by just changing when the medication is taken.
Alternatively, if the side effects are intolerable or don't subside, we may switch you to a different medication in the same class. In other cases, certain side effects may respond well to a different medication or an over-the-counter treatment to alleviate the symptoms. For example, gastrointestinal discomfort or insomnia may respond quickly to time adjustments or changes in lifestyle habits.
Using ongoing assessments, our Columbia specialists will periodically monitor your medication effectiveness and potential side effects that could develop over time. This is more important for some medications than for others.
Call Our Columbia Team to Discuss the Potential for Medication Management
There are many benefits to achieving good mental health. For some people, treatment for mental conditions requires a combination of medications and talk therapy. Using medication management in Columbia can help increase the effectiveness of the medications while reducing the potential for side effects. Bloom Health Centers is an all-purpose mental health treatment team, so please reach out to us and set up a time to discuss ways we can help.
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