If you usually take medicines for a health condition, the hospital staff will review these before you come into hospital. You may need to pause some regular medicines before your procedure. A nurse will let you know before coming to hospital which medicines to stop and when to stop them. You will also get a letter or email with this information on it.
Instructions for making changes to your medicines can be confusing. As a guide, if you are told to stop a medicine for 3 days before your surgery, this means stop for 3 full days and skip it on the morning of the operation. This means if your operation will be on a Friday, then you should:
- take the medicine as usual on Monday
- not take it on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (3 full days)
- not take it on the Friday.
If you are not told to stop any of your regular medicines, you should still take them before surgery. It is okay to have some water to take medicines during this time, even if you have been told to be ‘nil by mouth’.