Reading your prescription: the abbreviations and what to check

You leave the consultation with a slip you cannot fully read, hand it to a chemist who can, and take home what you are given. For most people that is the entire transaction.

It works nearly all the time. When it does not, the person best placed to catch it is you — because you are the only one who knows what you were told in the room.

The abbreviations

They are Latin, and there are fewer than you would think. These five cover most of it:

OD — once a day BD — twice a day TDS (or TID) — three times a day QID — four times a day HS — at night, at bedtime SOS — only if needed STAT — immediately, one dose now

And how to take it:

PO — by mouth PC — after food AC — before food PRN — as required

So Tab. Amoxicillin 500mg 1 TDS PC x 5 days reads: one 500mg tablet, three times a day, after food, for five days.

You will also see Tab (tablet), Cap (capsule), Syp (syrup), Inj (injection), and x followed by a duration.

What must be on it

A prescription is a medical and legal document, and a complete one carries:

• The doctor's name, qualification and registration number
• The clinic or hospital, with contact details
• The date
• Your name, age and sex
• The medicine, its strength, the dose, the frequency and the duration
• The doctor's signature

If the registration number is missing, that is a genuine gap — it is what identifies the prescriber as registered to practise. This applies equally to a prescription issued in a teleconsultation, which is a valid prescription and should carry the same details.

The five things to check before you leave

That you can read it. If you cannot, ask. Illegible prescriptions cause real dispensing errors, and asking is not rude — the regulator has repeatedly told medical colleges to insist on legible prescriptions for exactly this reason.

That the strength is there. "Thyroxine" without a number is not a usable instruction. Strength errors matter more than name errors, because a wrong strength of the right drug looks entirely normal at the counter.

That it matches what you were told. If the doctor said twice a day and the slip says OD, ask now. This is the single most valuable check, and only you can make it.

That the duration is stated, particularly for antibiotics. "Until it finishes" and "for five days" are different instructions.

That your existing medicines were considered. If you brought your strips and the doctor did not look at them, say so before you leave.

After the chemist

Check the box against the slip. Same molecule, same strength. Indian brand names are numerous and similar, and a wrong strip handed over is caught at this moment or not at all.

Ask the pharmacist to repeat the instructions. They will, and it is a free second reading of the prescription by someone qualified.

Do not let the chemist substitute a brand on their own. If you want a cheaper equivalent, that is a question for the doctor — they know your history and the pharmacist does not.

Two questions worth asking every time

What is each one for? Not just when to take it — what it does. People who know what a tablet is for are far more likely to keep taking it, and far more likely to notice when something is wrong.

What should make me stop or come back? Every medicine has a version of this answer, and it is usually left out unless asked.

Keep it

Photograph the prescription before it leaves your hand.

Prescriptions go to the chemist and stay there, get wet, and get lost. The photo takes two seconds and is the record you will still have in six months when the next doctor asks what you were on — a question you will not be able to answer from memory, because nobody can.

If your clinic issues prescriptions digitally, that problem largely solves itself: the record stays retrievable, legibility stops being a variable, and the next doctor sees the actual text rather than your recollection of it.