People who take meds to control BP, cholesterol and other things are not weak-willed or lazy. Pharmaceutical companies do fabulous work at discovering things that not only save lives but enhance living for millions of people. There should be no judgment against people who take meds to live.
No lifestyle changes will allow me to stop my Rx, sadly. My docs are puzzled as to why I have my conditions but we are all glad the Rx keep things under good control and allow me to lead a good and productive life. Same with H and our kids. Without my Rx, our lives would be very different–in a BAD way.
I only take 1 medication: a BP med. When I started riding my bike regularly, I was able to go to a 1/2 dose. Lately I noticed I am getting light headed when I get up from a sitting position. I’m optimistic I will be able to get off this med altogether.
Medicines can save lives and improve quality of life. However, every med exacts a price of some kind as well. It’s all a balancing act.
My sister is tiny and extremely fit. Without her BP med, her blood pressure sits in the 190s/110s. She really has no choice but to take it, as it’s not related at all to her weight/fitness/lifestyle.
@whenhen that’s actually a really good point.
I and most other people I know with my illness usually take somewhere in the range of 2 dozen pills per day. I have some dozen+ individual prescriptions. I’m trying to wean off the ones that are more minor because taking this many pills a day just gets old.
Getting comments on how many meds I take gets really old, really fast- especially when I’m told that a simple lifestyle change will fix me right up. When I was “just” on depression medicine, I was told that just going outside or whatever would cure me. I was told that I was weak because I couldn’t “deal” with it without meds.
Now I’m told by people that if I just take up yoga or get rid of dairy, I can get rid of most of my meds. How yoga and dairy are supposed to prevent getting sick from exposure to sunlight (or whatever medicine they want me to get off) is beyond me. :-??
People are different. What one person’s system can control with dietary changes and exercise, another person’s system will need medication to regulate. Body chemistry is such a delicate balance to begin with – I wouldn’t dare try to tell someone how to treat a medical
condition.
I think genetics play a large part in our health, but I also think modern medicine is a wonderful thing. It stands to reason that our generation uses more meds than our parents’ generation. I think more of us were born, and fewer of them lived to adulthood.
I’m dismayed when conversations like this get so binary. Yes, people who need medications should take medications; many are lifechanging/lifesaving. But yes, also, millions of people are probably also over-medicated, with medications to control the effects of other medications, with cross-effects between different ones. Certainly the pharmaceutical industry saves lives, but equally certainly, it invents conditions which now need medication.
All of that is true, at the same time. None of that questions any one person’s lived experiences.
I also have to again dispute the assertion that we are living significantly longer now. People always got old in the same way we do. Just that many things in the past killed people before they got old. But that changed significantly generations ago, with the advent of vaccines and antibiotics.
Actually, life expectancy in the US has started recently creeping down.
^ Yes, maternal mortality brought down life expectancy considerably. I can’t remember the age exactly but once reaching X age, you were almost as likely to live to old age as you are today. I thought it was 5 but that doesn’t seem right given MM. Maybe it was 5 years old for men.
Over-medication is certainly a significant problem especially given the rise in antibiotic resistance. 
Life expectancy at birth increased about a decade from 1950-2010. That seems significant to me. Nor, was it a gain just for women, due to better maternity care. Male life expectancy at birth increased 10.6 years over that time.
@garland:
You hit the nail on the head with your last post, that it isn’t binary. There are a variety of reasons why the number of meds are going up, and aging population is one of them, and there are people like my father, who didn’t smoke, who was within 5 pounds of the weight he weighed when he got out of the army his entire adult life, was active, didn’t eat junk food, ate a pretty healthy diet, and still got hear disease in his 60’s, because his cholesterol was near 300, it was genetic, so in his case it wasn’t doing something wrong. and there are folks who need all those medicines, who have multiple issues.
On the other hand we also have medicine that even with prevention is geared around the quick fix, with the last studies that showed that for example dietary cholesterol may not be linked directly with serum cholesterol (that basically it is mostly genetic), they immediately pushed to have millions more taking statin drugs much earlier, as a preventative, instead of looking at ways that might help block heart disease if you do have high cholesterol (and while I think the whole dietary cholesterol=blood cholesterol=heart disease was stone age medicine, I think there are reasons why high fat diets influence heart disease, like inflammation), and I don’t think that is a coincidence, lifestyle ways of treating things don’t rack up billions for the pharm industry.
Likewise, people have expectations about drugs these days, that there is a drug to cure everything, and I think that is where the advertising of prescription drugs on tv is a problem. I suppose doctors can find out about drugs that way, but to me that is a bad tradeoff for allowing those ads (and I believe the US is one of the few, if any, who allow that), doctors shouldn’t be watching tv to find out drug information, they are supposed to keep up with the literature, or the info drug reps are giving them. There are all kinds of studies about this advertising, and for example, it often means prescribing a name brand drug when an older generation or its generic would do fine, or someone sees the ad and nags their doctor to get it (some doctors are good at saying no, others given their workload according to the studies basically give in to keep the patient happy). Interesting the article mentioned all male testosterone replacement stuff and how common it has become, take a look at the ads out there (and I am not talking the herbal stuff), and there are a ton of ads for prescription T gels and the like, promoting it as a garden of eden, when as pointed out in this article, it has never been approved for treating the basic condition that men’s testosterone levels decrease as they age, and it could be that they have dropped lower than ever, as another thread talked about. Problem is, taking testosterone is risky, I was the patient of an endocrinologist who was an expert on sex hormones as well as metabolism (was the chair of the department at a world famous hospital), and he told me that as much as they thought they knew, the endocrine system is often guess work, and when it comes to things like testosterone or with things like anabolic steroids (when I was working with him, the stuff with the ball players was big news) you are taking risks…but doctors are writing prescriptions for the stuff for men wanting back their youth (it is a huge business from what i can tell, not surprisingly).
I am sure the reports don’t represent use, I just got an EMR from my health insurer, and I see things like prescriptions for a pain killer after surgery I never filled, and prescriptions for a lingering UTI that make it seem like I was taking stuff continuously (I wasn’t), it also shows things like the steroid creme I have a prescription for for a skin condition.
The reason they advertise is simple, it is effective, people see the ads, which show all kinds of things (I love the viagra and cialis ads, which are kind of misleading, the in shape guys they show on the commercials are generally not the guys who get ED, if they showed a typical, non athletic, non active middle age couch potato, would be the truth…not to mention it implies if you use this stuff you’ll end up with a gorgeous woman in matching bath tubs lol). Advertising is a marketing tool and like any product it isn’t just about the facts, ma’am, it is implying that taking these drugs will make you fit and young again as well, it isn’t much different than hair color products that show a woman getting a hot guy, the older woman running after her grandson, all give the idea this is what will happen if you use the miracle drug.
On the other hand, I think the US is having more and more issues because of lifestyle and relying on drugs to combat the effects, the rate of diabetes II has gone through the roof, and take a look at advertising and you see a lot of ads for drugs that bring down blood sugar, ads for test equipment and the like, because the market is big and getting bigger. Likewise, research figuring out the exact pathways of heart disease could mean not needing the hundreds of billions spent on drugs for heart disease and surgery, finding out what really helps prevent it, but a ton of money is spent on researching new heart drugs, a relatively small amount on figuring out how to prevent it , hopefully without needing drugs, but that is not surprising, take a look at how big a business drugs are. We have a big fight in this country over health insurance, how to get it to people and pay for it, and prescription drugs are a huge part of the cost each year.
@roethlisburger --but again, life expectancy from birth does not give an accurate depiction. Once the first few years of life were passed, life expectancy was fairly close to now. As I said above, vaccines and antibiotics have cut down infant and young child mortality drastically. Those very young deaths account for almost all of the average life expectancy at birth difference.
I do believe things in the environment–pesticides, preservatives, widespread use if antibiotics in producing food, chemicals in products in our homes and cleaners have all created health problems as well.
Asthma seems a lot more common than it was when I was young. When I brought S his asthma inhaler in grade school, the other kids all whipped out theirs. Back in preschool, the kids identified the grape smelling felt-tipped pen as smelling like Dimetapp, a popular liquid over-the-counter antihistamine.
I do wish the drug companies couldn’t advertise on TV and other media. I do wish medicine in the US spent more time and energy on lifestyle issues instead of the idea that the right drug or combo can fix everything.
I do wish treatments weren’t so terribly expensive as well.
I would need to see a link to be convinced of that. If you look at the CDC numbers, life expectancy at 65 increased 37% from 1950-2010.
When I was growing up in factorylandia, all the kids had asthma. I can’t even think off the top of my head of anyone I knew growing up who didn’t. All of our teachers knew how to do breathing treatments for those with quite severe asthma.
When I moved in middle school to the more upper-middle class city, no one had asthma. None of my friends had childhood asthma like I did. My asthma has mostly disappeared too (whether it’s because I grew up or moved away from the factories, I’ll never know- but probably both.)
@HImom if you haven’t read it, I highly recommend. Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility By Dorceta Taylor
And the fact that we’re one of 2 nations that allow direct-to-consumer advertising is ridiculous. My rheumatologist said many people come in demanding Humira and the like even though their RA (or whatever) isn’t to the point that it requires such powerful drugs. One of the potential side effects of Humira is freaking lymphoma and they still demand it without needing it (yet). (He doesn’t prescribe it.)
If there are a lot of people like me, then I can understand how the statistics are skewed. I’ve had several health problems. I’ve been referred to several specialists. At each one, I give a summary of my various medical conditions and explain that I can’t and won’t take drugs that have a risk of two or three side effects that I just do not want to deal with. For example, tachycardia or other cardiac symptoms is one of my no-go’s, since I have a mild heart condition (MVP) and also have occasional episodes of SVT. I am very sensitive to meds and have had several serious “side effects” so I’m not just being irrationally difficult. I had my first SVT episode when I took a Sudafed for a headache - I ended up in the ER where they had to stop my heart for a millisecond to "re-boot it to a normal rhythm. I got drug induced long QT syndrome, another serious cardiac arrhythmia, after taking an antidepressant. I got a bleeding ulcer after using ibuprofen for a few weeks due to a painful shoulder (throwing up blood is not pleasant, and I ended up spending the night in the hospital after the ulcer was cauterized). When I was a teenager, I was given a med that caused my eyes to keep wandering up and to the right (that was an experience - I was home alone and I barely managed to call a neighbor - I couldn’t control my eye movements so I had a hard time trying to read her number beside our phone).
So, I’ve got good reasons to be picky. Anyhow, my doctors will agree to address my concerns and look through their databases and prescribe a med that supposedly is appropriate for me.
Then after I pick up the med, bring it home and do some research on the side effects, I will often find that it has a high percentage of having one that I told my doctor was not acceptable to me. So I’ve got at least 10 bottles of meds in my bathroom right now that I have never used. That’s how I helped in skewing the results.
But I also recently came to the conclusion that I wasn’t being picky enough. Because I have multiple health problems, I used to take quite a few meds that were prescribed for me that did meet my litmus test. However, a few months ago, I got to a point where I just wasn’t feeling well at all despite being taking drugs that were supposed to be helping me feel better. I thought possibly they were interacting with each other and making my symptoms worse. So I started weaning myself off several of them to see if I could figure out if that was the case. That experiment had mixed results - I didn’t feel either better or worse after I stopped taking them (after the withdrawal side effects were over)! They were an antidepressant, omeprazole (I was advised to take this after my ulcer), a non-opioid pain med, and Singulair (I have always had very bad allergies. I used to have coughing fits that burst the blood vessels in my eyes, and that was my miracle drug, but apparently I don’t need it after relocating across the country!). So I had been taking several drugs for several years that I absolutely didn’t need at all. That was an eye opener. That’s something that is probably contributing to the problem - people get into a routine thinking they need the meds they are taking. But needs change as we age, move to different locations and environments, change our life situations, etc. so it would probably be a good thing to reassess our medication needs every so often.
Aging has had a surprising effect on my med needs. You’d think as you get older, that you’d need more meds. But I have found that my migraines and stomach issues have practically disappeared (hormonally related I’m sure). Unfortunately my heart symptoms (also hormonally related) didn’t become concerning until I was about 48.
Now I take four meds, two meds for my heart symptoms, a statin, and Benadryl for insomnia. I would be very uncomfortable and a nervous wreck without the heart meds, don’t really know if I need the statin, but better safe than sorry, and I absolutely need the Benadryl or I’d get no sleep at all (hormones again). So I feel that my meds are appropriate for me. I’m definitely not feeling energetic, pain free, and fit, but I’ve been making some diet and lifestyle changes to address the problems that meds haven’t been able to cure.
I take 3 meds. One is an anti-depressant that when taken in small doses in used for pain. I take it for a chronic condition. The other I take because before my diagnosis my anxiety/stress was sky high. I’ve chosen to stay on it even though I have no anxiety/stress anymore as stress exasperates my chronic condition.
Then I take a low dose (10 mg) of a statin every other day. I went off it for a few years but had to go back on when the bad cholesterol started creeping up. My good cholesterol level is still very good.
I also take fish oil and calcium every day.
Much research has linked many chronic health conditions to socio-economic class in the US. Asthma is still much commoner now than decades back.
In addition to the chemicals in our environment, I think asthmatics are living long enough to meet one another and have kids. I am asthmatic, as is my dad. H is asthmatic. Both our kids are asthmatic.
Fortunately, we were able to buy a house and make it as low allergy as we can by having no carpet nor stuffed animals. If we had thise, our allergies would be far worse. Folks who rent gave fewer options and less control over their environment.
I’m thrilled to take my meds. My chemo was FDA approved one year before my diagnosis in 2002. Prior to that, life expectancy was three years. So while the cost is insane and the side effects limiting, I’m still here. No family history of leukemia – CML is a spontaneous mutation.
Was put on statins (along with other meds) after my cardiac arrest and had terrific numbers, but lots of muscular/tendon side effects. Took a break and my numbers doubled. Am going to see a cardiologist who specializes in the cardiac side effects of my leukemia drugs. It’s a very delicate balance that keeps me alive. My current cardiologist pulled my Plavix and added a supplement, and my INR has been extremely problematic since.
My mother was an example of much that is wrong with the medical system in the US. She was over-medicated for small things and then more medicated for side effects of the first medications and so on. It was absolutely ridiculous.
Then when she was terminally ill with lung cancer and had broken her hip in a fall and was blind, and 84 years old, the medical establishment was pushing ever type of aggressive treatment possible. I was flabbergasted.
I have done pre-op assessments of elderly people who are taking a very long list of medications. Taken in isolation, some of the meds might seem reasonable to prescribe. But in combination, they can cause so many problems, and as already mentioned, often mandate other prescriptions to deal with the side effects. It can get really extreme, and the quality of life of these people deteriorates, due directly to the sum of all of the drugs’ effects.
The goal should always be to keep medicines to a minimum, and drug interactions should be very carefully considered. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen. Sometimes patients don’t remember to tell their doctors everything they are taking, and other times, the medical practitioner doesn’t consider the implications of drug interactions. It can be a huge mess.