Safety of Medicine

In My Humble Opinion
1

In your professional, or educated opinions, is the medicine coming out nowadays safe? I think we all agree that the stuff does what it was designed to do. But does this somtimes come with a long term, undetectable-for-years price to pay, healthwise?

I took Celebrex for a shoulder injury three years ago and my face blew up like a chipmunk. I took Naprosyn for an injured ankle two years ago and sudddenly I have a heart palpitation. I still have the heart “palpitation” today.

I was lucky to have the symptoms that I could detect. And I was lucky to only be on the medicine temporarily. What about all the things that can go wrong that are undetectable and that slowly and subtly threaten long-term health?

Finally, are doctors really smart enough these days to know exactly what their product is going to do to the vastly complex human body? (I doubt it) If so, will they tell us of any long term health effects, or only the ones people will notice easily?

Personally, I believe, based on very little science and on a lot of common sense conjecture, that almost anything synthetic or not naturally ocurring that enters the body has a large potential for damage, especially when taken in high doses and for lengthy periods of time.

Bottom Line: I will only take medicine, in any form or strength, if I am in a fatal or traumatizing situation. Opinions?

(I am young and healthy. I agree that when I am older, I will probably reconsider this strong stance, but for now, this is how I feel)

2

The only way to tell for SURE if something has long term, undetectable-for-years effects is to watch everyone who’s taken it for years and see what happens. Not exactly an easy thing to do. Beyond that, we can look at what it does short-term, when administered to, say, college students who need money, and what similar drugs (if there are any) do.

Personally, I think the aversion to synthetic things is kind of silly. There’s a whole bunch of naturally occurring stuff that can really mess you up if you take it, same as with synthetic stuff. I’m actually much more comfortable with most manufactured drugs, because they’ve been tested and we KNOW what’s in them and what it’s supposed to do.

As for doctors being “smart enough” to know what stuff’s going to do to you - the ones who prescribe it to you don’t test the meds. They have access to a lot of literature that tells them about the side effects that have been observed in drug trials, but if a side effect’s not listed there, or if it’s given as being less common than it actually is, they have no way of knowing that.

Personally, when I don’t feel well, I look for a drug that will make me feel better - but only if I have some grasp of what it’s doing to my body. I know how most painkillers work, how they operate in my system, so when I hurt I take painkillers without giving it a second thought. Decongestants. Cough suppressants. I’m fine with all of those. They’re simple drugs that I can take short term to solve minor problems, and I have yet to see any reason that I should avoid them.

3

Well I’ll take whatever they give me once they’ve satisfied my questions about side effects and allwed me to weigh the risks/benefits.

I’ve been one one medication or another since I was a teenager. I was diagnosed with a kidney disease at age 9. I took some experimental drugs to combat this disease because my only other option was to slowly let my body kill my kidneys. Prognosis was kidney failure before my 18th birthday. I’m 30 now and pregnant with baby number 2. (They were afraid the medicines would render me infertile)

Do doctors know everything that will happen on a given medicine? No. With the variety of reactions people can have to any treatment out there I wouldn’t expect them too! But I have had some great doctors and they have done an incredible job keeping me healthy enough to withstand two pregnancies. People with my disease are advised not to have babies even if they are fertile! Medicine can do some great things. Are all medicines safe for all of the population? No. Will that mean I will not take them? No.

Oh and about the synthetics thing… peanuts kill plenty of people and they are natural!

4

I’m not a member of any medical profession, I just read a lot, so maybe this makes me more credible to you – and then again, maybe it won’t.

Nothing is guaranteed to be 100% safe for everyone all the time. Nothing. Not traditional medicine, not herbal medicine, not your granny’s oatmeal. Nothing. There is an inherent risk in everything you do. Some risks are larger than others.

You said “Personally, I believe, based on very little science and on a lot of common sense conjecture, that almost anything synthetic or not naturally ocurring that enters the body has a large potential for damage, especially when taken in high doses and for lengthy periods of time.”

Well, yes. Except you have to take out the words “synthetic or not naturally occurring.” Horse manure is naturally occurring. If you take high doses of it for lengthly periods of time, you will not do well. The same could be said for seal’s liver, salt, sugar, certain vitamins, and water. Poison Ivy is naturally occurring. Don’t eat it! Not even a small amount for a short period of time.

On the other hand, “unnatural” antibiotics (many derived from nasty, repulsive but natural fungi) have kept many children from getting diseased and damaged heart valves, just to name one benefit. In fact, many of the so-called “unnatural” things are derived from substances found in nature. Check out the connection between aspirin and willow bark, for example.

The medicine nowadays is a good deal safer than that a hundred or so years ago. Not knowing any better, people once used to dose infants with laudanum to help them sleep better. Know what laudanum is? Tincture of opium. Derived from that wonderful organic source, the lovely and innocent poppy.

Do you know what one of the reasons is that medicines are so expensive today? It’s because the manufacturers have to spend years and years proving to the big bad ol’ government that the substances will not cause undue harm.

Do you know why it costs so much to see a specialist? Because of the many years of very difficult education she has to undergo. No reputable doctor will claim to know everything about “exactly what their product is going to do to the vastly complex human body?” But they will have a pretty darn good idea.

“…will they tell us of any long term health effects, or only the ones people will notice easily?” Darn right, they better, if it’s something known by the medical community. If not, that’s known as “malpractice.” That’s why good doctors often test for all kinds of things before prescribing meds, to be as sure as they can that they are giving you the best they have. That’s why when you pick up your prescription at the drug store, there’s a printed insert that tells you all the known major, minor and even infinitesimal risks or side effects.

Are there potential side effects for medicines? Certainly. If you take TOO MUCH aspirin you may very well get an upset stomach. If I take penicillin, I will get a rash. Some people, when they take antihistamines, get a rapid heartbeat. We are all subtly different. The point is that doctors learn what the likely risks and the likely benefits are, and attempt to see that the latter outweigh the former. Medicine is both an art and a science.

The next time you need to see a doctor, tell her about your reactions to Celebrex and Naprosyn. You did tell the prescriber at the time, didn’t you? And she assured that what you felt was indeed a reaction to the medicine? And told you to stop taking it? If you didn’t tell the doctor at the time, you should seek medical attention now for your palpitation. Maybe it is an unrelated coincidence that it happened when you took the Naprosyn and you need attention now to treat something else entirely different.

I’m glad you are healthy. I hope you stay that way.

Again, no really competent person in any profession, certainly not medicine, claims to be perfect and to know everything. I’d certainly agree that we should not take medicines without being sure we really need them. But “natural” is not necessarily “better.” And medicines today are actually much more likely to be safe than at any time in the past, IMHO.

5

I have chronic hives - the size of dinner plates, all over including my face, swollen throat, anaphlayxis, you name it. No known cause, but I’ve been like this for 3.5 years. I take a boatload of antihistamines a day, but I’m still breathing. I function, I have a job, a husband, a life. Without my pills, I was insane from the itching - what time I wasn’t in the emergency room with my airway closing. I’ll take my pills, tyvm. I’m 35 and say Better Living through Applied Pharmaceuticals.

6

Wow MLS… nice post!

Oh and DeVena… I like your Better Living through Applied Pharmaceuticals motto :slight_smile:

7

Medicines have always had and always will have side effects. The human body is an insanely complicated system and the effects of many drug’s are relatively crude, in addition every person has a slightly different metabolism and can respond to medication in different ways. However drug testing does pick up many problems and more is understood about the potential pitfall’s of medication than many people realise. In most cases you are better off taking medication for a problem than doing without. However it is certainly never a good idea to take any sort of drug if you do not really need to.

1)Read the instructions that come with medication, these will list known side effects, If you suffer serious side effects stop taking the medication and see your doctor .
2)If you start suffering from symptoms not listed for that drug and you think it is caused by the medication stop taking it and see your doctor , ask your doctor to report the side effect to the manufacturers (doctor’s are often lousy at doing this)
3)Try and avoid taking large amounts of non-prescription medicine. For example if you are suffering from persistant headaches don’t just keep taking aspirin’s see your doctor .

Basically don’t worry too much about taking drug’s but don’t treat them like sweets either. It is also important to remember that the problems that do occur are not caused by the product’s artificiallity, most drugs are developed either from natural product’s or using our knowledge of biological systems. I often find it mind boggling that some one will worry excessively about using a pure, thourougly tested product, and then not bat an eyelid about using a less well understood product because it is “natural” or “herbal”.