Pill Identifier From Drugs.com

Hi All,

Well, we can't always post fun and entertaining blog entries. Occasioanally we need to generate an educational entry from which readers will learn something. This is one of those posts - but, as I mention below, this site can be a matter of life and death. At the very least it is an educational site that people who are taking medication should know about. The name of the site is Drugs.com.


Drugs.com bills itself as 'Drug Information Online'. The site is huge and rivals WebMD and MedlinePlus.Gov in comprehensive information.

Drugs.com is full of good, quality information, but I want to zero in and discuss a single section of the site: Pill Identifier. Why? Because the site has the potential to save lives.

Note that before you actually are able to enter the site and use the main feature of identifying a pill, you'll need to accept the User Agreement. Just click on the 'I Agree' button and you'll get to use the rest of the site.

Here is how the site works: Users enter any identifying marks (imprint) of the pill that he/she wants to identify. In addition, users can enter the color and the shape of the pill to be identified.

Simple as that. Once the user enters the information, a list of similar pills appears. For example, a search beige and round pills yields 78 results. Once the results appear, you can use the mouse to hover over the pill you are interested in. If you hover like this, the cursor acts like a magnifying glass by enhancing the size of the pill you are looking at.

One of the best features of this site is that you can gather more information on a particular drug if you click on the 'View More Details' icon. When you click on the View More Details icon, you get information like strength of the medication, manufacturer, drug class, pregnancy category and availability. Clicking on the name of the pill brings you to another very helpful page.

Information on this page includes, 'What is the medication?', 'Important Information About the Medication', 'Before Taking the Medication', User Reviews, Detailed Side Effects, Drug Interactions and Support Group Q&A.

The site (Drugs.com) has so much information that it might take users a few tries to get used to all of its various functions. So don't fret - take some time to browse, bookmark the site and come back another day to get familiar with the rest of the sites' very helpful featues. It is well worth your time and effort!!!

Regards,
Stu