medication and fasting

The Details of the Question
dear brother my question is about fasting....i have to take medication throughout the day as i suffer with mental heath problems but inshallah ramadan is cuming up and im scared i wont be able to fast. last year i tryed to fast but not taking my medication made me ill and suffer sideeffects so my husband told me to breck my fast.do i stop my medication during fasting and just put up with the sideffects and feelin ill or will i be excused from fasting please please help....
The Answer

Dear Brother / Sister,

If fasting gives harm to one's health, it is permissible for him  not to fast, but when s/he gets well he must fast for each missed days. If the ilness or the reason that avoids fasting is permanent then s/he must pay ransom (fidya).
If one is healthy enough to be able to fast, paying ransom (fidya, the feeding of one that is indigent) instead of fasting will not save him from the duty of fasting. He must perform fasting that he missed for each day. A Muslim, who is incapable of fasting, must pay ransom (if can afford) instead of each days that he didn’t fast. This ransom is current instead of fasting. The amount of ransom (fidya) is equal to the amount of fitra (special form of Islamic alms-charity).
Ransom (fidya) of fasting is testified directly by the Quran; “(Fasting) for a fixed number of days; but if any of you is ill, or on a journey, the prescribed number (should be made up) from days later. For those who can do it (with hardship), is a ransom, the feeding of one that is indigent. But he that will give more, of his own free will,- it is better for him. And it is better for you that ye fast, if ye only knew. (el-Bakara, 2/184)
Also, if it is testified by a pious doctor that one can not fast, s/he can pay ransom instead of fasting.
The limit of illness which make not to fast permissible has been listed by our Islamic law scholars as follows:
1-Having so much difficulty by fasting,
2-Having a life-critical because of fasting,
3- If ilness becomes intensfied or the cure delays because of fasting.
Nowadays, according to the depandable doctor’s statements, some of the certain ilnesses which make not to fast permissible are those:
1- The extremity heart illnesses.
2- Tuberculous and the disase of lung ichor
3- The disease of canser,
4- Intense kidney inchor,
5- Urethritis with having stone in it,
6- Extremity arterioslerosis,
7- Extremity diabetes disase (1)
8- Having ulcer with the stomach and bowel,

(1) el-Fıkh'ul-Islâmi and Edilletuha v. 2, p. 645

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