Polypharmacy
Treating Ourselves to Death
Sun/Jul/07 11:21 PM
This past week a patient of mine became quite ill and needed to be rushed to an emergency room. The situation looked dire and the symptoms were baffling. A sudden change in health for no good reason and what appeared to be a life threatening stroke or central nervous system disaster. I went over in my mind the last visit and wondered what I had missed. I assumed that I had not paid attention to some subtle symptom and now the result was disaster. Twenty-four hours later the picture is still murky but what emerged is this: medication given by a caregiver to ease a symptom that was mild likely resulted in severe sedation. The medication may or may not have been for this particular patient. This got me thinking about how many American households have stockpiles of old prescription and over-the-counter drugs that are "shared" by well meaning family members for symptoms similar to those for which the medication was initially given. I really don't blame families (although this is a very dangerous practice). I blame our medical/pharmaceutical complex that has convinced us that every symptom, every problems has a medicine (or two or three) that should be used to relieve the symptom. Now I am not saying that drugs do not help people ( I am after all not a herbalist or naturopath) but I am saying that sometimes symptoms tell us that our lives should be changed, should be lived differently. A century ago if you were tired, you slept. If you had muscle aches you rested. Now we pop a pill to eliminate the symptom that may be our body trying to tell us something. I see many patients (especially the elderly) who come in taking 10 or more medications. Not regularly for research shows that it is unusual for someone on 2 medications (that are given more than one time a day) to take them every day. The result is a mish-mash of daily drug therapies. "I felt my blood was up so I took an extra one of these and skipped that one all together." We have all become pharmaceutical experts and the ads in the magazines and on the TV just confirm the fact that we know what we need and how to take them. The problem is, we don't. More people die from medication errors than car accidents every year in this country....and those are the ones we know about. People overdose, they go to the ER and almost die, they are sick for a few days but get better all because they are taking mixes of many medications that ALL have potential for harm. The lesson this week is CLEAN OUT THE CUPBOARD and don't share your medications. And remember to always ask your doctor if you need to have a pill for that symptom you just mentioned.
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