I’m Dr. Jim Rybacki, author of Medicines and Your Family and the first edition of The Essential Guide to Medical News. I’ve been helping people understand their medicines for more than 30 years. Many of you have seen me on TV, in hospitals, doctor’s offices and on this site which just celebrated its ninth birthday!

Did you know that more than 100,000 people die each year from misusing medicines or from the medicines themselves? It is a startling fact and unfortunately, the FDA itself does not do a great job of tracking medicines once they are approved.

Over the years, many medicines once only available by prescription have made what is called the RX to OTC switch. This is prescription to non-prescription. What it means is that you have more choices, potent medicines, but it also means that you have to know what not to mix together.

I’ve coined the term Drug Interaction Syndrome or DIS to help identify the problem. Please remember that prescription, nonprescription, nutritional and herbal products can all fight. This doesn’t mean that the products are bad, it simply means that you don’t want to get DIS'd by your drugs. Give your doctor, pharmacist, nurse, nurse practitioner, dentist, physicians' assistant and specialist the best chance to keep you safe by making a list so that they can check it twice. None of them is clairvoyant. If you don't tell, they won't know.