Posted on 03/21/2018 2:10:20 PM PDT by Kaslin
Is tonight’s dinner giving you heartburn? You’re in luck; there is a pill for that. Do you have high blood pressure? There’s a pill for that, too. How about going bald? Restless legs? Help in bed? Thinning eye lashes? Yes, yes, yes, and…yes – all maladies solved with the help of prescription drugs. In modern medicine today, there seems to be nothing that cannot be cured with prescription or over-the-counter remedies. Simply turn on television during a big game or an evening news program, and you’ll catch the latest drug ad from Astrazeneca, Merck, or Pfizer, hawking a treatment for whatever ails you.
While the expansiveness of today’s treatment options is good for clinical care, we as a society have been conditioned to expect that all of life’s problems are solved with a small pill and a sip of water.
Is it any wonder then, that we have an opioid epidemic?
The Rolling Stones presaged America’s obsession with pharmaceutical “therapy” in songs such as “19th Nervous Breakdown” and “Mother’s Little Helper,” recorded in the mid-1960s; decades before today’s crisis. “Mother needs something today to calm her down,” the song goes; “and though she's not really ill, there's a little yellow pill; she goes running for the shelter of a mother's little helper.” The pill referenced in the song is thought to be Miltown (meprobamate), a precursor to Valium and Xanax; a psychotropic drug with properties of a tranquilizer, and once used to treat everything from alcoholics to stressed-out housewives and Hollywood’s elite. According to Andrea Tone, a pharmacology historian, Miltown “normalized the notion that people who didn't have serious illnesses, who are just riding the roller coaster of the vagaries of life could pop a pill,” and be cured; a cultural mindset Tone says has become “enduring.”
Enduring, indeed. Today, the pharmaceutical industry spends an estimated $6 billion a year marketing its products; with roughly two-thirds of that on television advertisements. As a society, we have gone far beyond simply accepting prescription drug treatment as normal; it is now relentlessly pounded into our heads everywhere we turn. Paired with today’s cultural demand for instantaneous gratification and impatience with even momentary delay, the opioid epidemic was a perfect storm just waiting to finally break.
Clinically speaking, opioids are a popular treatment option because of their low cost and effectiveness in pain management; decreasing pain transmission along nerve fibers, while providing patients a relaxed feeling. Unfortunately, the very reasons that make the drugs a legitimate treatment option for pain management, have given rise to its illegitimate use as an escape mechanism for people not suffering from physical pain but rather, as Tone mused, from “the vagaries of life.”
This psychological dependency on opioids to take a break from life’s problems, coupled with the physical changes to the brain’s chemistry that makes them so potentially addictive, means opioids do represent a dangerous recipe for chronic addiction if not carefully monitored by a physician. As a result of the government’s recent crackdown on opioid abuse, they have become both harder to obtain legally and more expensive on the black market; thereby causing addicts to turn to a far more dangerous substance -- heroin.
Enduring, indeed. Today, the pharmaceutical industry spends an estimated $6 billion a year marketing its products; with roughly two-thirds of that on television advertisements. As a society, we have gone far beyond simply accepting prescription drug treatment as normal; it is now relentlessly pounded into our heads everywhere we turn. Paired with today’s cultural demand for instantaneous gratification and impatience with even momentary delay, the opioid epidemic was a perfect storm just waiting to finally break.
Clinically speaking, opioids are a popular treatment option because of their low cost and effectiveness in pain management; decreasing pain transmission along nerve fibers, while providing patients a relaxed feeling. Unfortunately, the very reasons that make the drugs a legitimate treatment option for pain management, have given rise to its illegitimate use as an escape mechanism for people not suffering from physical pain but rather, as Tone mused, from “the vagaries of life.”
This psychological dependency on opioids to take a break from life’s problems, coupled with the physical changes to the brain’s chemistry that makes them so potentially addictive, means opioids do represent a dangerous recipe for chronic addiction if not carefully monitored by a physician. As a result of the government’s recent crackdown on opioid abuse, they have become both harder to obtain legally and more expensive on the black market; thereby causing addicts to turn to a far more dangerous substance -- heroin.
Ultimately, however, America’s drug crisis – with opioids and drugs more generally – will continue so long as we as a society believe popping a “little helper,” is a normal response to the non-medical problems in our lives.
Dristan is great.
Was great. Then they yanked it from the shelves along with many others some 15 years back.
However, it is back, but rare, in slightly modified form. Whenever I see it, I buy it.
Don’t forget anal leakage!
“Pretty sure King Crimson had them beat in the predicting-the-future-with-classic-rock department with “21 Century Schizoid Man”.
Nope, both Stones songs were recorded and released late 1965.
In The Court Of The Crimson King was recorded in late 1969 and released in early 1970.
Yes...I’m THAT old... :>)
I take it you mean blood pressure meds, diabetic meds, or meds for any other disease?? WOW, that’s scary to think about. I am anti statin drugs.
Big Pharma keeps funding “research” that results in lowering the standards/thresholds for medications and/or advocating medicating for “pre” conditions.
Their goal is to get everyone hooked on prescriptions and semi-annual blood work.
What pill helps with going bald? Does it make your hair fallout faster?
On literally my first day in college, I learned about the fallacy of the "one-way correlation." 100% of mass murderers drank milk as children, but that doesn't mean drinking milk causes murder. You have to also look at the other half of the correlation-- what percent of people who take psychotropic medication become mass murderers?
Well yes in terms of date produced. KC though made a longer-term prediction, the Stones’ “predictions” were all but already true at the time they wrote it. Boomers popped a whole lotta pills in their younger days.
Yeah, you’re right about that...I always thought Jim Morrison was singing a prophetic utterance in the song The End when he sang...”and all the children are insane...”
A good many of them are insane these days in my opinion.
Morrisson was talking about the company he himself kept.
“What about the fact that most of the recent mass murderers have recently been on psychotropic medications? The media says nothing...”
Why indeed? The world wonders. I have a dollar that says it will be the same with the Austin kid.
“I don’t think there’s a connection, beyond proving that psychotropic meds don’t help some people”
Read the books by Dr. Breggin and Ann Blake Tracy. “Your drug may be your problem” and “PROZAC, PANACEA OR PANDORA”.
I wouldn’t take an aspirin unless I was convinced I would die in the next 12 hours if I didn’t take it.
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Me either. I have several autoimmune diseases that could be made easier with several drugs I do not take. I do take methotrexate (MTX), Orencia and Forteo. Taking the first two like clock work enables me to actually function but not necessarily on all burners. Forteo is to fill my brittle holey bones with a calcium matrix that won’t let them break. I have pain constantly at some level; some enough to waken me at night from an already restless sleep. I do not take any opiod for those nights but I do take ibuprofen.
My self-imposed limit on RXs is three. Even at two I am unclear what the ultimate side effects might be. And at three NO ONE KNOWS. Period.
I wish all of you a pain free life. What a wonderful life that could well be!!!!!!!!!
I’ll do that. Thanks for the suggestion. (Not being sarcastic. I’m always looking for good book suggestions.)
Does milk carry a warning label that a side effect of drinking it could cause “suicidal ideation and or homicidal tendencies?
Contrarian that I am, people use these meds because they WORK, even cheap simple stuff like ibuprofen. I have seen people suffer major issues from ibuprofen, and many WILL NOT stop the med because without it they can’t get out of bed in the morning. If it were a glorified placebo, people would not take it for long. The rest of you can have bad heartburn, uncontrolled hypertension, crippling rheumatoid arthritis, and untreated breast cancer if you really want to. I’ll take my meds.
So? Those two are in the class of benzodiazepines. Although they can become habit forming, they are nowhere near as addictive as the opioids nor life ruining. I've always been a very light sleeper and gotten worse in my 60's. Once I got a legal script for Ativan (a benso) I sleep through the night and wake up refreshed. My trick is to use it every other day between antihistimes so I don't build up a tolerance nor a dependency.
I'm 68 and if not for my blood pressure medication, I probably would have had a stroke by now...it was that high. I also have to take thyroid because it was so low. I get an extremely complex blood work up every year that includes tests most folks never heard of.
All this whining about Big Pharma ticks me off. The people who should get the derision are the Doctors that over-prescribe. They give antibiotics to everyone who comes in with a sniffle, a cold or the flu, which have NO affect on viruses. They prescribe opioids like candy for the slightest pain.
My gripe about Big Pharma is why are the same drugs so less expensive offshore?
Tip for moderate to heavy drinkers: I've been taking Milk Thistle for years and every blood test comes back with liver enzymes as normal. Milk Thistle has been prescribed in Europe for decades for liver health. So there is something to say about natural remedies. I have also taken Saw Palmetto for years which has kept my prostrate healthy.
Men only: If you can afford it, a shot of BIOIDENTICAL testosterone every couple weeks is almost a fountain of youth. I'm not talking synthetic steroids that body-builders use. With the few exceptions there's a reason that young men don't have heart attacks and other age-related illnesses. Forget the TV commercials and their claims of enhanced everything in a pill. They all have the same herbs/supplements in different proprietary percentages that do little. Get your ass stuck every two weeks for $40 - it's a small needle and painless. Just google a life extension doctor in your area. They'll test you for T levels and recommend dosage if you need it. I wouldn't bother if you're under 50, unless your libido is non-existent. You may be one of those guys who lose it early.
It's just crazy that people now see Big Pharma as the boogeyman even though their drugs help people live healthier and longer lives. Yeah, they don't work for everyone and are actually detrimental to some. So ask your Doctor what the side affects are read the frigging lable.
The drug commercials that crack me up are the ones that end with: If you are allergic or have bad reactions to Pudamizam, don't take it. Now how would you know unless you take it. Especially like the ones that end with, "...even death". That one I won't take, unless on my death bed.
BTW, I've always understood the Stone's little yellow pill to be a barbituate (yellow jacket) like reds, rainbows and qualudes, which all were popular back then to bring you down from a hectic day or benzedrine high.
Post hoc ergo proper hoc. Someone who is deeply disturbed often seek help in one form or another, and they are often prescribed psychotropics. It does not imply a causal relationship. Consider: many arthritis sufferers take ibuprofen. Therefore we might conclude that ibuprofen causes arthritis, or at least provokes it. Frankly I’m tired of seeing people stop medications that were really helping because the goddamn AMERICAN PRESS has convinced them that they will die if they use Nexium for more than two weeks. Do you folks honestly believe that medical reporting is any better than political reportage in this country. It’s the same dumbasses who write the stuff /rant
Those are two excellent books.
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