How to talk to your doctor about your medicine

I’m noticing no one teaches us how to talk to our doctors.

Which frankly, is unacceptable.

It’s not okay that my dr is giving me a medication and I know nothing about it other than “it’s supposed to help.”

So, I’ve created a list of questions to ask your doctor.

Please use this at your next doctor appointment, especially when discussing new medications. You deserve to have all of the information. 

Asking these questions shouldn’t make your doctor upset. If anything, doctors are huge geeks and they’ll probably be excited to share all of this information with you, because they love medicine! So they’ll want to talk to you about it. They also are people too, though, so they might not know how to start the conversation. Take this list - print the page, copy these down on your notes app in your phone, take a screen shot, whatever. Just make sure you ask the questions and can WRITE DOWN the answers somewhere so you don’t forget them (because who does that happen to, honestly. really. not me, that’s for sure).

Questions to ask your doctor:

What do you think my diagnosis is now?

1. How did you get to that decision? OR What do you see that makes you think that?

2. Do I need more testing for anything?

3. Have we ruled out anything?

1. based on what?

4. "Assume I'm a 6th grader. Tell me about this like you would a 6th grader."

5. What does that medicine do?

1. What do you see that makes you think that that will work for me?

6. What are the side effects I can expect with that medicine?

1. Do you think those are likely for me?

7. Have you prescribed this medicine frequently for this?

1. If it's an old standard - my concerns for that medicine type are (weight, fatigue):

2. If it's a new medicine - my concerns for that medicine are (unstudied, longer term effects0

1. What can I expect?

8. What type of medicine is that? (anti psychotics, anti-convulsion, mood stabilizers type conversation)

1. I'm not familiar with that, tell I'm like a 5th grader.

2. What are the usual types of medicine for this diagnosis?

1. Why do you think type instead of the other type for me?

9. Is this a controlled substance?

10. Is this hard to get? Should I expect a struggle at the pharmacy when trying to get it filled or picking it up?

11. Will I have withdrawal symptoms if I don't get it on time?

1. what are those like?

2. Is that common?

12. Will this interact with any of my other medicine?

13. If we start this medicine, will that change the need for any other medicines?

Good luck out there friends. Stay healthy, stay informed. You can do this!