Health

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― In a survey of almost 400 people, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, almost half either misunderstood warning labels on prescriptions, or ignored them all together.

It can be confusing, especially if your prescription bottle is covered with brightly-colored stickers. So here's a guide for what you need to know.

The brightly-colored labels on your prescription bottle may be eye catching. But these "auxilliary labels," as the pharmacists call them, can be dizzying, and not always as straight forward as they sound.

For example, shake well. This applies to medicines that tend to settle at the bottom of a bottle of liquid.

"The question when you see shake well is how long should you shake? Is going (shake, shake) adequate?" rhetorically asks Ed Krenzelok, of the Pittsburgh Poison Control Center. "You ought to shake something for 15 to 30 seconds so that you re-suspend it."

Take on an empty stomach is another common one. That means one hour before or two hours after a meal.

"Certain food may interrupt the absorption or block the absorption of that medication," explains pharmacist, David Hairhoger, of Greenfield Community Drug.

The opposite, take with food or milk, has other implications.

"You should take them with food or milk to buffer the effect they may have on the stomach lining, and decrease the possible upset stomach that may occur," Hairhoger continues.

But take with milk is not the same as take with plenty of water, which indicates the medicine needs lots of fluid to dissolve in, or it needs to get flushed through the urinary system.

Do not chew or crush, do not cut, and swallow whole all essentially mean the same thing and is especially important when it comes to a slow release kind of drug.

"When you break or crush one of these tablets, it'll destroy the time-release effect," points out Hairhoger, "you may get the medication released all at one time, and in certain medications, this can be dangerous."

Drowsiness can be a side effect of a wide variety of medicines.

"Anything ranging from heart conditions, to any kind of pain, could actually have a side effect of drowsiness," says Med-Fast pharmacist Gino Cordisco.

And if a medicine causes drowsiness, the bottle might also say do not take with alcohol.

"You might think of one plus one is two, maybe you take a drug and then you take alcohol, and that's what you call a synergystic effect, where you get the enhanced effect where one plus one equals thre or four or five," explains Krenzelok.

Avoid sun. Sunlight with some prescriptions can be a problem -- for the pills.

"You'll notice most of your medications come in an amber bottle. And the amber bottle filters out the sunlight," says Krenzelok.

And sometimes for the person taking them.

"If they are out in the sun they can burn quicker," says Hairhoger.

In heat or at room temperture, some medicines will break down and lose their effectiveness. So if you leave the prescription that says keep refrigerated out on the counter all night, should you panic?

"It's probably fine," says Krenzelok. "Make a quick call to your pharmacist. Your pharmacist will say it's fine. Just keep it in the refrigerator the rest of the time."

These are just some of a vast assortment of labels a pharmacist could add to your bottle. The pharmacists say confusion isn't the bigger problem -- it's just getting people to pay attention to the stickers in the first place. So pay attention, and if you have any questions at all, give your pharmacist a call.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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