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4 Responses to “What is your perception of various medications?”

1. ozinnz Says:
   January 17th, 2010 at 8:00 am

   Sadly doctors become so immune to what they are doing that they just prescribe willy-nilly and seem to have no concern at all about how dangerous and addictive some of these drugs are.
   I was prescribed 3 x 5mg Valium a day at one time and told that I should stay on it for life. I found that after some time I was having trouble controlling anger and my brother, a chemist, explained that in fact this is what can happen, it numbs one’s control. I weaned myself off it but I nearly went mad with panic attacks in the process (I’d never known what panic was like before that).

   Opiods, sedatives, hypnotics – all result in the body requiring stronger doses with time as the body becomes immune to them. And there are other side affects. I have to admit that one of my friends has benefited enormously from one of the Prozac type drugs. It was prescribed for anxiety and she no longer has numb feet, spinning head, sleepless nights, churning stomach, inability to eat and lots of other symtoms. But apart from weight gain, one of the side affects I’ve noticed is that she no longer cares about things when she really should. Pehaps the pros outweigh the cons – but already the dose has been increased twice.

   Pain killers are a different issue.There are certainly times when they are necessary but there should be far more control in the way they are distributed. I was stunned when I was in hospital recently and had to lie still without moving for several hours. I made a passing comment to the nurse about the back-ache this caused and she said, "Do you want some morphine?". She was serious!!
   References :

2. gardensallday Says:
   January 17th, 2010 at 8:10 am

   I had the same trouble on benzos and the previous answerer, but in my case it was ativan (and even worse when I took only one ambien pill). I have bipolar disorder and get very bad depressions, but was unable to control suicidal behavior due to the ativan, and made many attempts. I also got in many verbal altercations with others. the psychiatrists thru the years said it was the bipolar, and also labelled be as having borderline personality disorder. I was close to involuntary commitment. But my new husband figured out it was the ativan, and my behavior has been much better ever since, even though the bipolar depression is still very severe. When I tell doctors what happened, they all say this problem is common with benzos, but then why were they all labeling me borderline or saying it was the bipolar and never even mentioned benzos cause aggression/out of control behavior? And hostility etc. was NOT on the side effect sheet, but it is apparently common.

   I am upset when these drugs are marketed to people with mild to moderate problems. My personal gripe is antipsychotic drugs – abilify and seroquel – being mass marketed. Antipsychotics kill many people – heart attack risk doubles, at least, these drugs cause diabetes, massive weight gain, etc. and should not be first line treatments except in schizophrenia, only second line treatment in bipolar if the first line treatments fail. yet here on yahoo answers, there are commonly people with major depression who are given abilify as the first thing to try, or if bipolar, seroquel is the first thing prescribed. In a few years, we will hear about the thousands who needlessly died on these drugs, just like happened with celebrex. (I do think these drugs are needed in some cases, but should be the last things tried).

   I think people are too quick to take meds for some conditions, and should try other things first, like counseling for sleep problems, more exercise, etc. For pain, there isn’t anything too good out there, some people need the strong pain killers. Pain management clinics should be more available for people with severe and chronic pain, such as arthritis. For anxiety, counseling is shown to be more effective than benzos, in most cases. So that should be tried first. (oh, but that’s too hard.. . . ).

   I don’t think some drugs are bad and some good, so much, but it’s how they are used. Most of these drugs should not be the first treatments tried, but are useful tools in a doctor’s kit. Unfortunately, these drugs seem to be the ONLY tools in some doctor’s kits.
   References :

3. anna Says:
   January 17th, 2010 at 8:59 am

   Doctors tend to overprescribe, sometimes without having enough information to go on. They reach for a quick-fix, a temporary solution, without necessarily being aware of the patient’s history, or caring.

   Don’t forget that many pharmaceutical companies encourage doctors to prescribe by handing out free samples…just like pushers. And those incentives (kickbacks), invitations to "conferences" (ie paid vacations) etc. are just pretty packaging on an old system of bribes to get them to prescribe new, expensive, overkill Drug A instead of the older, cheaper, more thoroughly proven Drug B.
   References :

4. Gavin Says:
   January 17th, 2010 at 9:34 am

   My perception of various medications = brittany murphy, DJ AM, Heath Ledger, michael jackson, Billy Mays, and next door neighbor
   References :

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