Prescription for danger?

OTC is short for over-the-counter. These are medicines you can buy without a prescription from your doctor. Chances are, you’ve used OTC medicines many times to relieve pain and treat symptoms of the common cold, the flu, and allergies. You can now buy some 450 over-the-counter drugs that would have required a prescription just 15 years ago. That trend increases your ability to manage your own health – but it also increases the potential for overuse and misuse. Indeed, nonprescription drugs can cause serious harm if you don’t know – or don’t follow – the appropriate precautions, not all of which are listed on the label. Taking these medications too often or in high doses can produce severe side effects, worsen the very symptoms you’re trying to treat, or delay diagnosis of major diseases. Taking them with the wrong foods, drinks, or medications can spark dangerous reactions.

oothing. Strong. Trustworthy.” According to the maker of the new over-the-counter pain reliever Aleve, that’s the message conveyed by

the product’s white and blue colors. But anti-inflammatory pain relievers like Aleve and aspirin are not so soothing to the stomach: Prolonged use of such drugs is one of the main causes of ulcers.

Naproxen (Aleve) is the latest to make the switch. Moreover, it means that people will now be getting much of their information about drugs from advertisements, such as an ad for the yeast-fighting drug Monistat 7, which printed a crucial warning in such tiny type that you could easily mistake it for a smudge at the bottom of the page. (That warning cautioned women not to treat an apparent yeast infection on their own unless their doctor had diagnosed the same kind of infection in the past.)

This report describes the kinds of trouble that nonprescription drugs can cause, lists the specific risks of the most common drugs (see table), and tells you how to get the information you need to use over-the-counter drugs safely.