Quote:
Originally Posted by khrussva
My mother is like that. She has always been one to go to the doctor for a pill of some sort for anything that ails her. When I tell her about the laundry list if health issues that this WOE has resolved, her response to many of the conditions I mentioned... "Oh, I take [drug xyz] for that."
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Well yes, that is the mindset, for both doctor and patient. But as your mother's regretful experience on vacation has shown, this attitude has implications far beyond the ridiculous cost of such an approach.
It also undermines our health further, I am convinced.
I used to be shocked and appalled by the side effects; now I am simply resigned. The list of side effects of almost any of these new drugs is long and, often,
worse than the original complaint. But even more horrible than that is how they have started creating drugs which do not stop their side effects when the drug is stopped. Statins are the most common drug which can trigger dangerous and permanent side effects, but are far from the only ones.
The cases of Propecia and Accutane, taken for baldness and acne, respectively, are coming to light as the source of agonizing symptoms that can surface years after the drug is stopped. Men with Post-Propecia Syndrome lose all libido, ability to show or feel normal sexual arousal, the ability to experience pleasure of any kind (anhedonia) and severe muscle aches. Accutane can trigger a number of digestive disorders (people often lose feet of intestine) along with permanent dry eyes and other mucous membranes.
Dry eye sounds like a trivial complaint, but it is not. Drops only keep the worst of the symptoms at bay. Sufferers have trouble reading and sleeping, and it often triggers eye pain bad enough to induce suicide (as discussed in congressional testimony over the relatively unregulated LASIK eye surgery.)
If I ate like the rest of the nation, I would probably be on drugs for high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, and a non-existent "cholesterol" problem.
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Also, Ken, congrats on being half the man you used to be! You learned, you focused, you did it!