Medication Management

Psychiatric medications like antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and stimulants often form a vital part of mental health treatment plans. Katrina Coulter, RN, MSN, APRN, PMHNP-BC, of Psych Investments LLC in Grapevine, Texas, uses medication management to ensure people get the maximum benefit from their prescriptions. She also addresses problems like side effects and drug interactions. Call Psych Investments LLC, or book an in-person or telehealth appointment online today to learn more about the benefits of medication management.

What is medication management?

Medication management helps you get the most benefit from your prescription drugs. It ensures that you take the correct dose at the right time and don’t suffer from unpleasant or dangerous side effects.

Medications are often vital for people with mental health problems. They change your brain’s chemical makeup, rebalancing substances like neurotransmitters that regulate mood and reducing symptom severity. Drugs commonly used to treat psychiatric disorders include:

• Antidepressants
• Anti-anxiety medicines
• Stimulants
• Mood stabilizers
• Antipsychotics

These drugs come in various forms that all work slightly differently. It’s not easy to predict which one will be most effective because responses to psychiatric drugs vary from patient to patient. At your medication management review, Katrina can assess how well your current medication works and adjust the dose or move you to a different drug if required.

What other benefits does medication management offer?

Medication management’s other key benefit is protecting you from the adverse effects that drugs sometimes cause.

All medicines can have unwanted effects, such as nausea, headaches, stomach upsets, or palpitations. Often these are tolerable and outweighed by the benefits. However, side effects can sometimes make you feel worse or be intolerable. They can occasionally be dangerous, presenting a significant risk to your health.

Katrina can help by assessing how you react to a particular drug and, where necessary, replacing it with another. She can also adjust your medication as you move through the recovery stages of conditions like depression and anxiety.

What does medication management involve?

Katrina offers medication management reviews in person or via telehealth. The review begins with an assessment of all the medications you currently take, including dosage and frequency.

In addition to your psychiatric medications, Katrina needs to know about your other prescriptions, for example, blood pressure pills or hormone treatments. Medications can sometimes affect one another — for example, some opioid painkillers interact with certain antidepressants. 

To avoid adverse effects, it’s also important for Katrina to be aware of other products you use. If you regularly take herbal remedies, over-the-counter drugs, or dietary supplements, let her know, as these could also affect your psychiatric medications.

After checking your medications and reviewing the benefits and side effects you experience, Katrina makes any necessary adjustments to your prescriptions.

If you use psychiatric medications, arrange a medication management review by calling Psych Investments LLC or book an appointment online today.