The average American has 4 pill prescriptions.

[Coyote]

It's so annoying.
It also makes one wonder how much cheaper medications would be if they didn't spend millions on ads for commercials for such specific ailments.
The list of side effects last half the ad and usually sound worse than what the person is suffering from.

We, as a culture, believe there is a pill for everything…and, everything NEEDS a pill.

 

[Papageorgio]

We are 5% of the world's population but we consume 50% of the world's pills. Golly we must really be healthy! Not. Read this informative article on US pill consumption.

Why do Americans need so many prescription drugs? | Letra Urbana

letraurbana.com

Blood pressure meds are a joke. AMA calls 120/80 normal, several doctors and associations say 149/90. I think we tend to over medicate when just changing our diet would bring better health.

 

[Unkotare]

We are 5% of the world's population but we consume 50% of the world's pills. ...

We're number one!

 

[braalian]

We're number one!

USA! USA! USA!

 

[MarathonMike]

Blood pressure meds are a joke. AMA calls 120/80 normal, several doctors and associations say 149/90. I think we tend to over medicate when just changing our diet would bring better health.

I just had my yearly physical and my cholesterol was a few counts above "normal". My doc started pushing cholesterol medication!

 

[Papageorgio]

I just had my yearly physical and my cholesterol was a few counts above "normal". My doc started pushing cholesterol medication!

I just think they make money off prescribing medications. My father and mother came to live with us some years ago and they each took 5 or 6 prescriptions and my wife worked with their doctors and changed their diet and dad was down to a water pill and mom was down to eye drops. No vaccines, no daily doctor visits, just diet and light exercise.

 

[Woodznutz]

My next door neighbor is on 19 of them. He's taking enough for the whole block.

My sister had about 15 or so at one point. They eventually killed her.

 

[Woodznutz]

I've never even heard of half the diseases those pharmaceutical ads are for.

Do they invent new diseases first, then come up with the cures later?

Lots of them are reactions to drugs themselves.

 

[Woodznutz]

Blood pressure meds are a joke. AMA calls 120/80 normal, several doctors and associations say 149/90. I think we tend to over medicate when just changing our diet would bring better health.

I quit my BP meds and my BP returned to normal.

 

[DGS49]

Ahem...

When I was 23, I had oral surgery, at which time a consulting cardiologist told me that I had a broken heart. More specifically, I had an "inverted T-wave," normally indicating a past heart attack or clogged arteries. Having no idea what to do about it, he put me on a BP medication. Many years later, another doctor put me on a different BP medication, a "beta blocker," which I still take. In my 60's I learned that the inverted T wave was perfectly normal for me, being the result of an unusually shaped left ventricle. It has no medical significance. Still on that beta blocker, tho. And by the way, I have no clogged arteries at all, at 73 y.o.

The usual bullshit with prostate hit me in my 50's (I think it was partly caused by the pounding of being a runner for 25 years), so I'm on a prostate drug. Two interesting things about them drugs, (a) it's also used to prevent hair loss, so I'm not bald like my brothers, and (b) you become "addicted" to them. In other words, if I stop taking it, I can't pee normally. Can't empty my bladder. So I can't stop taking that one either.

Now a few years ago they are testing for one thing and another, and they realize that I have "A-fib." Irregular heartbeat. In fact, my heart stops for up a minute at a time...then it starts up again, at least it has until now. So I have to take a fucking blood thinner to reduce the chances of a stroke - caused by Afib - and that has a lot of nice little side effects. Hint: Don't get a tattoo while you are taking a blood thinner.

My cardio guy wants to implant a stand-by defibrillator, but "we" have agreed that "we" won't do that until I at least have some symptoms of the heart problem that they swear-to-God that I have. Never actually noticed it myself.

And of course, on an as-needed basis, I have those big blue pills that cost a shitload of money - unless you get them from India, which I did. I won't go into that here.

How many pills am I taking. Let's put it t his way: I have a list of them in my wallet (as an old bastard, people are always asking me what medications I'm on). The next prescription will put me onto page 2.

And thanks to creeping socialism (i.e., Medicare), the cost of this garbage is not significant. The blood thinner is about a grand a year. Tolerable.

 

[Circe]

I don't have any... I feel like such a slacker.

I don't have any either. My strategy is to run fast, run far whenever I see a doctor in the distance. Clutching my Medicare account tightly so he can't get hold of it.

 

[Circe]

Ahem...

When I was 23, I had oral surgery, at which time a consulting cardiologist told me that I had a broken heart. More specifically, I had an "inverted T-wave," normally indicating a past heart attack or clogged arteries. Having no idea what to do about it, he put me on a BP medication. Many years later, another doctor put me on a different BP medication, a "beta blocker," which I still take. In my 60's I learned that the inverted T wave was perfectly normal for me, being the result of an unusually shaped left ventricle. It has no medical significance. Still on that beta blocker, tho. And by the way, I have no clogged arteries at all, at 73 y.o.

The usual bullshit with prostate hit me in my 50's (I think it was partly caused by the pounding of being a runner for 25 years), so I'm on a prostate drug. Two interesting things about them drugs, (a) it's also used to prevent hair loss, so I'm not bald like my brothers, and (b) you become "addicted" to them. In other words, if I stop taking it, I can't pee normally. Can't empty my bladder. So I can't stop taking that one either.

Now a few years ago they are testing for one thing and another, and they realize that I have "A-fib." Irregular heartbeat. In fact, my heart stops for up a minute at a time...then it starts up again, at least it has until now. So I have to take a fucking blood thinner to reduce the chances of a stroke - caused by Afib - and that has a lot of nice little side effects. Hint: Don't get a tattoo while you are taking a blood thinner.

My cardio guy wants to implant a stand-by defibrillator, but "we" have agreed that "we" won't do that until I at least have some symptoms of the heart problem that they swear-to-God that I have. Never actually noticed it myself.

And of course, on an as-needed basis, I have those big blue pills that cost a shitload of money - unless you get them from India, which I did. I won't go into that here.

How many pills am I taking. Let's put it t his way: I have a list of them in my wallet (as an old bastard, people are always asking me what medications I'm on). The next prescription will put me onto page 2.

And thanks to creeping socialism (i.e., Medicare), the cost of this garbage is not significant. The blood thinner is about a grand a year. Tolerable.

Not my business, but I wonder if your mistake is letting them test you! If they test you they WILL find a reason you have to take the seven pills a day all Americans over 60 are supposed to be taking. This reason is their mortgage and sending their kids to college, but hey, it's a reason, right?

I don't let them get near me to test me and certainly not to "screen" me with the Dirty Doctor Office Questions. You know, asking if you are drug addict, if you have a mental illness, if you have intercourse with persons of your same sex, if you are a man or a woman (this to your face while they are looking at you).

I am healthy and active. If I get sick, I'll tell the doctor I'm sick and try to purchase a cure as a service. The doctor does NOT get to tell me I'm sick!! If I don't feel sick, I'm not sick.

 

[Woodznutz]

Sadly, those meds are needed as people just don't care for their health (been there, done that).

 

[AMart]

No prescriptions for me. I did buy some aspirin recently and maybe went 3 years with aspirin.

 

[Circe]

I bet you guys don't know that there are at least two cooking magazines for women (Allrecipes and Taste of Home) which have a business model of almost giving them away, like a monthly print subscription for $5 a year, and the way they make their money is three-page drug ads every five pages. I've taken both magazines, I'm on Taste of Home now. Great recipes and they spin them off as books. In both cases they get the recipes free from the public by maintaining websites where women can publish their home recipes and people do so by the millions. These recipes all become the property of the magazine companies.

They advertise to women constantly to get us to take the magazines because they have to be able to show the pharmaceutical company that they have a good audience for their drugs.

I carefully avoid looking at these ad pages, of course.

 

[Woodznutz]

An ED cardiologist doubled my statin prescription stating that it was the 'new regime'. My regular doctor was puzzled as I was doing fine on the lower dosage. He countermanded the order. Another doctor wanted to increase my BP medication far beyond what I was taking. I refused and eventually stopped taking BP meds altogether. Since then my BP has been returned to normal. I also stopped taking the statins as I couldn't take the muscle weakness and other side effects. If it shortens my life, so be it.

 

[d0gbreath]

10 years ago I had 13 prescription bottles in the medicine cabinet. It's mostly our own fault. You complain, and they write you a script. After I went on permanent vacation, I said "Doc, since I've retired, I'm not depressed anymore." She said: "That's really quite common." Six less bottles. I was having so much fun that I dropped another three. I'm at four, but I don't think that two of them are needed anymore.

That's the thing. They put you on stuff for life. If it hasn't worked yet, your tolerance will have negated it over time.

 

[Ringo]

 

[Calypso Jones]

ozempic brings on Gastroparesis. You will never gain weight with gastroparesis. You will lose...and eventually....you will lose your life.

 

[Calypso Jones]

10 years ago I had 13 prescription bottles in the medicine cabinet. It's mostly our own fault. You complain, and they write you a script. After I went on permanent vacation, I said "Doc, since I've retired, I'm not depressed anymore." She said: "That's really quite common." Six less bottles. I was having so much fun that I dropped another three. I'm at four, but I don't think that two of them are needed anymore.

That's the thing. They put you on stuff for life. If it hasn't worked yet, your tolerance will have negated it over time.

$$$$$$$ for drug companies and doctors. Treat the symptoms. not the cause. you can bury your mistakes.

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