What happens if you take the wrong dosage of medicine?!

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Depending on the medicine, it can do nothing at all just like it can kill you.

For example, if a diabetic injects himself with a dosage of insuline that is too low or too high, he can go into a coma and even die. If you take a low dosage of acetaminophen, it will do nothing, but if you take one that's too high, you can fry your liver and die.

Too low a dose of antibiotic means it'll be ineffective and will allow infectious bacteria to develop immunity to the antibiotic. Too low a dose of heart medicine can fail to prevent death from heart disease. The list goes on and on and on and on...

Too high a dose can result in serious injury, and in some cases, death.

Might I suggest you don't screw around with your medications? There's a reason the label reads "Take as directed"...

Depends very much on what the medicine is.

If you overdose on say a pain medicine like Hydrocodone (aka: Vicodin) you could become very nauseas and vomit, become severely constipated, and if you took ALOT more than your prescription you could have enough CNS depression that you died.

If you didn't take 'enough' -- It very well would be less effective, to ineffective. You pain would remain, and you would not get the desired results of the medicine, which is analgesia.

If you overdosed on something like the anti-biotic amoxicillin you would be in no danger of death. Instead you could experience diarrhea and that would be the worst of it.

If you under-dosed, or didn't take the prescribed amount of this antibiotic you very likely would not eliminate the bacteria it was prescribed to kill. Thus you would remain infected/sick with whatever condition it was prescribed for .. at least for a longer period than if you took it properly.

I only mentioned specific medicines to give you examples of how the effects can vary from over-dosing or "under-dosing".

It depends on the medication, some are lethal, others just have unpleasant side effects. Generally 'under-dosing' will always have no negative effects other than not achieving the desired effect due to insufficient concentration/amount.

Very much a common sense scenario here.

well, it all depends on the medicine of course, but in general, too much can harm you and too little won't be enough to be effective for what you're taking it for.

pharmacy technician

you may die