What does 1-0-1 mean on a prescription?
On Indian prescriptions, 1-0-1 means one tablet in the morning, none in the afternoon and one at night. The three numbers are the three parts of the day, in order: morning, afternoon, night. Each number says how many to take at that time.
The common patterns
| You see | It means |
|---|---|
| 1-0-1 | One in the morning and one at night (twice a day) |
| 1-1-1 | One in the morning, one in the afternoon and one at night (three times a day) |
| 1-0-0 | One in the morning only |
| 0-0-1 | One at night only |
| 0-1-0 | One in the afternoon only |
| 1-1-0 | One in the morning and one in the afternoon |
| ½-0-½ | Half a tablet in the morning and half at night |
| 2-0-1 | Two in the morning and one at night |
Some doctors write four numbers, such as 1-1-1-1: morning, afternoon, evening and night. A dash, a plus sign (1+0+1) or a gap all mean the same thing.
Short forms you may see
| Short form | Meaning |
|---|---|
| OD | Once a day |
| BD or BID | Twice a day |
| TDS or TID | Three times a day |
| QID or QDS | Four times a day |
| HS | At bedtime |
| SOS | Only when needed, for example for pain or fever |
| STAT | Right away, once |
| AC | Before food |
| PC | After food |
| Tab, Cap, Syp, Inj | Tablet, capsule, syrup, injection |
| × 5 days | How long to take it |
| Rx | The prescription itself (from the Latin for "take") |
Before food, after food, and for how long
Before food (AC) and after food (PC) say when to take a medicine around a meal. If the prescription doesn't say how long before or after, ask the doctor or the chemist.
× 5 days or × 1 month is how long to take it. If no number of days is written, ask whether it's a medicine to continue until the next visit.
When to ask the doctor or chemist
- You can't read a medicine's name, its strength or the numbers.
- The numbers and the short form disagree, such as 1-0-1 written next to TDS.
- A new prescription seems to include a medicine that's already at home under another brand name.
- You're not sure whether an old medicine should stop now that there's a new prescription.
When in doubt, a quick call to the clinic or a question at the chemist's counter is always worth it.
How Nabzs helps
Take a photo of the prescription and Nabzs reads it with AI: each medicine, its times (1-0-1 becomes a morning and a night dose), before or after food, and for how many days, numbered the way the doctor wrote them. You check everything before it's saved.
Then each dose rings at its time, on your parent's phone or on yours: 8 AM and 9 PM for 1-0-1, unless you change the times. See how Nabzs works.
