A client who starts taking an inducer drug will probably eventually need higher doses or more frequent doses to keep a therapeutic level of the medication. And for those clients who take several drugs with an inducer, upward dosage adjustments or increasing frequency of administration of most other medications will be necessary. This can be a very important consideration for clients who are epileptic and take oral contraceptives. Tachyphylaxis is a relatively rare type of tolerance which develops with frequent doses of a medication over a short period of time , often because of a depletion of chemical factors in the body necessary to make the medication work. BACK Dietary Habits Dietary intake may influence medications and vice versa.
Some foods can interfere with some medications.
Malnutrition, especially protein deficiency, can affect the binding of medications in the blood. You will learn more about this later. Alcoholics often are plasma protein deficient, so must have much lower does of warfarin than most people or they may bleed to death. Some foods change the pH of the gastrointestinal tract or the urinary tract affecting medication effectiveness. The culture of the client may include some unusual dietary influences.