Are small people seriously over-medicated? Big people under-medicated? [View all]

[cthulu2016]

Looking that this (useful) thread, http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024091849 , about how emergency contraception pills lose efficacy when the patient is over a certain weight reminded me of a recent experience with a doctor where he looked me up and down when writing a prescription and wrote it for a little larger size, noting that the standard dosages of medication are for someone around 140 pounds. I'm 180-190, which is unexceptional for my height, so I am not used to thinking of myself as needing the jumbo size of things, but compared to the human adult average (men and women, all ethnicities) I'm pretty big.

I don't usually think in terms of, "all general observations about medications are made for someone clinically substansialy smaller than I am."

140 pounds sounds like about right for the adult human average. Since I am bigger than that "standard" size he felt that a bit more than the standard dose made sense... like 20mg of something vs. 15mg.

With so many people weighing 280 pounds or more, are they typically prescribed double the usual dose of things? I don't know, but I would guess that they are not.

This all probably doesn't come up as much as it should. Doctors may adjust for it, but we all know that OTC medicines typically do not.