Hi, thank you for your question. Many patients opt for traditional medicine when they fall sick. However, most of them do not know the contents of these medications and other substances have been added to them. Some of these people who produce or sell traditional medicine may have added other substances into the medication in order to produce instant results.

Therefore, patients have to be extra careful especially if you feel that the medication gives you immediate improvement in your condition. Most of the time, these medications improve your condition initially and cause side effects later on. Some of the ingredients in these medications were not registered under The Drug Control Authority (DCA).

This means that these medications have not passed the relevant tests which determine their safety, quality and efficacy. Some of them contain high levels of heavy metals like mercury, cadmium, lead and arsenic. Exposure to these ingredients may lead to serious complications, such as chronic kidney disease.

Some tips for usage of traditional medicine are as follows:

1. Make sure that the medication is a registered product under DCA. Registration number of traditional medications begins with “MAL”, followed by 8 digits, and end with a letter “T”. You can checked whether it is registered under DCA via the Registered Products Search Service on the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) website.

2. Confirm the authenticity of Meditag hologram label on the medication with your pharmacists or doctor.

3. Get medications from reliable sources, for example, clinics, hospitals and pharmacies.
   Even if you are taking traditional medication, you should not stop the medication prescribed by your doctor unless if you are told to do so. Besides, you should let your doctor know if you are taking traditional medication to prevent unwanted drug-drug interactions.

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