Nearly 46 percent of people with at least three prescriptions had no diagnosis of a mood, chronic pain or sleep problem, the study found.
Weird. Perhaps the patients are watching medicine ads on television. Then they request the drug from their doctor, and he writes a prescription, without bothering to make a diagnosis.
Given that the industry has poured endless billions into convincing consumers to do exactly that, I’d wager that a) it’s the truth; b) the pharmas know that; and c) they’re banking on it.
Commercials misinform patients who threaten to leave their doctor if they dont get the pill they saw on TV. The line is very blurred between pain killers, sleep aids and anti-depressants. Expiring trademarks and the greed of more $$$$$ creates all manner of chemicals that we dont even have names for yet.
My lesson was with Tramadol. A 6 year addiction in spite of 4 medical Dr.s ensuring me that its not addictive. After I proved them all wrong and found someone to help, the worst 13 months of my life began. The only pill I agreed to take in 45 years made my chronic pain seem like a walk in the park on a spring day.
I doubt my faith in medical science will ever recover.
“Do no harm” — What a joke!
Insomnia is considered a psychiatric diagnosis so sleep meds could considered psychiatric. Chronic pain, I don’t believe is a DSM V diagnosis so I’m not sure why they would include them.
I know few people over 65 without some sort of ache or pain. If you considered chronic pain a psych condition, a prescription for Relefen would count.
An NSAID, some Lunesta to be used as needed and a script for Prozac would be 3 prescriptions. If they considered non prescriptions, somebody that takes Tylenol as needed, an Advil when the joints flair up and some Benadryl for sleep would be considered to be on 3 psych meds. Kind of weird if you ask me.
THAT is one part of the problem, another is unscrupulous doctors who prescribe unnecessary drugs, and receive kickbacks from big Pharma. Tapping into the Medicare Part D (drug) pot is very lucrative and very easy to get away with.