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  #1   ^
Old Sat, Sep-22-18, 03:58
WereBear's Avatar
WereBear WereBear is online now
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Default Why taking prescription drugs is playing with fire

I'm resigned to being regarded as a "nut" by huge segments of the public. They are convinced "drugs are lifesaving" and I'm one of those alternative healing, anti-science, fanatics.

So be it.

I read two things lately that have made me even more determined to do my research when it comes to my health care, because it really is dangerous to just do as we are told by our doctor: who, in turn, is probably in some kind of thrall to pharma companies, whether they realize it or not.

The research they rely upon has been compromised, the FDA no longer actually exercises oversight, and worst of all, the side-effects of modern drugs don't go away once you stop taking them.

In My Life Has Been Ruined by an Anti-Baldness Drug, the author explains how "I’ve endured depression, anxiety, headaches, memory loss, insomnia, blurred vision, and impotence since I was 19."

Quote:
In 2016, the World Health Organization had recorded that 59 men had killed themselves because of the side effects of finasteride, an anti-baldness drug. The drug doesn’t kill directly, but the profound physical and psychological damage it can cause makes it difficult for people to live a normal life. I know this because I am one of them.

In 2012, when I was 19 years old, I took finasteride in the form of Propecia tablets: one a day for just 21 days. I got them from The Belgravia Centre in London, a hair-loss clinic that advertises its services vociferously across the city’s public transport. I remember feeling uneasy and a little skeptical about relying on a drug, possibly for the rest of my life, for a nonmedical issue. But I thought that I could stop my hair from falling out, perhaps regrow some that I had lost, and have a good head of hair in adulthood.

The symptoms started almost as soon I started taking Propecia. I noticed a dull, persistent headache. I became anxious, depressive, and my sleep was nonexistent. My penis totally changed in character and just wasn’t the same; touching it was like touching my elbow or some other less sensitive body part, and erections weren’t real erections anymore, if they happened at all.

I quit the drug three weeks later when I realized the symptoms weren’t shifting. But even after I stopped taking the pills, I still had the arsenal of debilitating cognitive, mental, physical, and sexual side effects, most of which weren’t on the label and nearly all of which weren’t thought to be permanent—and of all of which were. Needless to say, I hadn’t been taking it long enough to notice any difference in my hair.


My italics. Because that is the crux of the matter. Methods for spotting and reporting side effects have been deliberately undermined by the pharma companies. In studies, anyone reporting side effects are dropped. They don't have too many people in them. So when they are unleashed in large quantities, worldwide, the results can be devastating: like the unfortunate men who took Propecia and wrecked their lives.

Like statins. There's hints that these drugs can trigger an "ALS-like condition" but all the studies emphasize it's rare. But if you add up all the side effects these drugs have, side effects like muscle weakness, loss of memory, and shooting pains are not rare. They are simply dismissed as "growing older" no matter what age the patient might be.

I have been reading about the Fen-Phen disaster in Dispensing with the Truth: The Victims, the Drug Companies, and the Dramatic Story Behind the Battle over Fen-Phen by Alicia Mundy. The story opens with a young woman, about to be married, taking Fen-Phen for 23 days. Then the side effects such as shortness of breath worried her and she stopped. But she still wound up in the hospital and was given four years to live. She got mere months.

The drug company battled the FDA for calling it a "fatal" side effect. Because it took victims so long to die.

In their quest for a drug that only quells symptoms, and so the patient has to take it the rest of their life, drug companies are tinkering with things they barely understand. Somehow, modern drugs turn off these switches, and then they can wind up in the OFF position, with devastating effects. Fen-Phen acted on serotonin, like SSRIs. It reduced appetite; and destroyed the heart. No one knew serotonin had an effect on heart valves. I see no signs they are actually acting on this information.

I don't want to be the first chapter in a book about medical tragedies.
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  #2   ^
Old Sat, Sep-22-18, 05:15
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cotonpal cotonpal is offline
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I agree. I avoid prescription drugs like the plague. The studies designed to test efficacy and safety don't really do that except in the most gross ways. Long term consequences are not explored. I will not be a guinea pig for the drug companies nor will I tinker with my "normal" physiology without a very good reason. Food is truly my medicine (along with a few supplements).
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  #3   ^
Old Sat, Sep-22-18, 05:25
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cotonpal cotonpal is offline
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On the same topic:
http://www.dietdoctor.com/have-you-...ord-deprescribe

Quote:
Have you ever heard your doctor use the word “deprescribe?”
1 hour ago by Dr. Bret Scher, MD in Drugs
Prescription of drugs

I have been a doctor for over 20 years. I can tell I never heard it in medical school, residency or fellowship, and I have never heard a colleague use it. Why is that?

Our medical culture is far too focused on prescribing medications to temper our symptoms or make our lab numbers look better. The result is we frequently fail to see if the medication actually helps us achieve better heath.

A recent article in express.co.uk gives us hope that we are starting to change this.

Express: GPs in mission to halt pill-popping menace

The article explains how hundreds of primary care doctors in the UK are joining forces to publicly emphasize the importance of lifestyle changes over drug prescriptions. A movement like this cannot come soon enough.

In the U.S., for instance, it is estimated that 60% of the adult population takes a prescription drug, and 15% take more than five. This is despite the fact that nutrition and exercise are equally or more effective than drugs for treating common conditions such as depression and hypertension.

An even bigger example is the prescription of statins for lowering cholesterol. The UK study cited 11 million prescriptions in 2007 increasing to 37 million in 2017 for atorvastatin alone. This is despite the fact that treating 217 people for five years with a statin prevents only one heart attack.

Said another way, 216 of those taking statins did not benefit, yet still had the potential for side effects and had the cost and inconvenience of taking the drug. Based on those numbers, it is long overdue for us to reevaluate our statin use.

And just to show no drug is completely safe, even aspirin is more complicated than we thought. Recent studies in NEJM showed aspirin has no overall benefit for primary prevention in those with diabetes, and two studies showed no benefit for those over age 70.

What can we make of all this? It is encouraging that groups of doctors are speaking out in favor of lifestyle, not drugs, as first line treatment. Combined with the growing body of evidence that low carb diets can reverse type II diabetes, the movement for fewer prescriptions allows doctors to focus on what really works- nutrition, physical activity, sleep hygiene, stress management, and other essential healthy lifestyle practices.

Next time you see your doctor, ask them when the last time was they used the word “deprescribe.” Hopefully, just by asking the question, you will help your doctor use that word more often in the future. That’s a movement I can support!

Thanks for reading.
Bret Scher, MD FACC


I would add "Who needs a doctor to adopt 'lifestyle' changes?" Maybe medicine would be better off getting back to treating acute illness and leave "lifestyle" to those of us living our lives.
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  #4   ^
Old Sat, Sep-22-18, 06:01
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WereBear WereBear is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cotonpal
On the same topic:
http://www.dietdoctor.com/have-you-...ord-deprescribe



I would add "Who needs a doctor to adopt 'lifestyle' changes?" Maybe medicine would be better off getting back to treating acute illness and leave "lifestyle" to those of us living our lives.


Absolutely! Especially when you consider how:
  • heart disease
  • diabetes
  • high blood pressure
  • cancer

are all diseases that lifestyle changes fix much better than drugs.
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  #5   ^
Old Sat, Sep-22-18, 07:43
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Ms Arielle Ms Arielle is online now
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Humbly, may I say the list is faaaaaar longer . I too use food to build my health.And a few targeted supplements. I do wish the supplement world could make me feel more confident about the purity of the content--or have I missed something on that track.

I love/hate the drug ads that pervade our viewing lives. Because they point out a looooong list of side effects. I point out to my kids " this is why you DON'T want to take that drug." Trying to teach the next generation to eat primal-lc to keep healthy.

Would like to see the ads disappear.

Dr Bikman would like to see the beef bashing to stop. He has a refreshing view on how food should not be bashed by the government.

I love a vegetarian meal now and then; but grow some of my own meat and eggs in hopes, now, of a healthier product.
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  #6   ^
Old Sat, Sep-22-18, 12:20
M Levac M Levac is offline
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Finasteride is an antiandrogen. Effectively, it's chemical castration. To say that side effects are rare is an outright lie, since its primary action is to chemically castrate. In order for side effects to be effectively rare, subjects must already have low testosterone and/or low DHT. This way, subjects will report no significant change. Brilliant. Do this to a 20 yo male with testosterone in the 900s, he's gonna feel it, that's an absolute certainty.

It's possible to restore testosterone production in several ways. But leaving it alone isn't effective. It must be restarted actively. Otherwise, the estrogen will continue to inhibit a normal restart. This is where the "permanent" effect comes from, because it's said that testosterone production will return back to normal on its own, when in fact it's well-known that it does not, especially in the world of bodybuilding where they inject testosterone. These guys have developed all kinds of ways to avoid shut down of the testicles (more accurately, the HPTA axis) during a cycle, and are continuously looking for ways to restart testosterone production after a cycle, because they know.

Another drug used to chemically castrate is triptorelin, which incidentally was found to have the ability to restart testosterone production when taken in a single tiny dose, rather than a huge single dose for castration. This drug is also used to treat prostate cancer, just like finasteride, by chemical castration.

In the case of testosterone production in men, it's a bit special because of the way it normally works, and the way it can be shut down and then fail to restart.

Also, it doesn't help that testosterone production requires fat and cholesterol (testosterone is a sterol), when we eat a high-carb low-fat diet.

It's just off the top of my head and may not be completely accurate, but it's close enough to make the point.
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  #7   ^
Old Sat, Sep-22-18, 12:55
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Pashta Pashta is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WereBear

Like statins. There's hints that these drugs can trigger an "ALS-like condition" but all the studies emphasize it's rare. But if you add up all the side effects these drugs have, side effects like muscle weakness, loss of memory, and shooting pains are not rare. They are simply dismissed as "growing older" no matter what age the patient might be.



I learned a couple of days ago from Dr. Georgia Ede that our brains NEED cholesterol, LOTS of cholesterol, and our brains actually MAKE their own cholesterol! I am afraid statins hurt brains because of this fact and maybe that's why it causes ALS-like conditions...

Here's the link again, which I got on this website in a different thread:
https://www.peak-human.com/home/dr-...-of-plant-foods
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  #8   ^
Old Sat, Sep-22-18, 15:12
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GRB5111 GRB5111 is offline
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I heartily agree, and the common reaction I get when I'm asked how many and which prescriptions I'm taking is disbelief. Yes, I don't take prescriptions, and the nurses asking the question usually don't believe me at first. I guess that's unusual to them for someone in the latter half of their 60s not taking prescriptions. Sad to say, but we are a prescribed society chasing symptoms with pills while not understanding that eating in a healthy way with fresh whole foods has the potential to eliminate those symptoms while not causing additional side effects and other health problems. Lifestyle changes are simple and effective. Dr. William Davis in "Undoctored" advocates for us to take control of our health by making simple lifestyle changes.
Quote:
"With rare exceptions, not very far at all. During your insurance-mandated 15-minute office visit, you’re generally permitted to report a symptom or two, resulting in a prescription delivered with as brief an explanation as the allotted time will allow, closing with “See you in six months.”"


Davis views physicians as skilled healthcare providers who don't need to be involved unless there is an emergency requiring very special skills or to interpret test results to confirm that your lifestyle changes are resulting in improvements. Davis recommends self-directed health:
Quote:
"It conceivably means that cholesterol abnormalities can be identified and managed without a doctor; blood pressure reduced without seeing a doctor; early osteoporosis corrected using commonly available nutritional supplements and exercise; vitamin D blood levels can be self-measured and self-corrected; low thyroid underlying fatigue can be identified and corrected. When people begin to realize just how much they are capable of in directing their own health, an amazing spark of interest ignites and they develop a deep fascination with learning more - very different from the conventional health interaction."

I'd be thrilled if more doctors became strong advocates of a lifestyle for health approach and "deprescribed" their patients. I have a couple currently who are firmly in that camp.
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  #9   ^
Old Sat, Sep-22-18, 16:09
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WereBear WereBear is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M Levac
It's just off the top of my head and may not be completely accurate, but it's close enough to make the point.


Sounds like it’s a lot more information than the poor guy has gotten so far.
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  #10   ^
Old Sat, Sep-22-18, 16:36
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deirdra deirdra is offline
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The common reaction I get when asked how many and which prescriptions I'm taking is also complete disbelief since I'm in my mid-60s. The dental assistant or nurse will then rattle off names, assuming I'm forgetting that some common ones are drugs because "everyone" takes them like aspirin. No. No. No. And I rarely take aspirin. I was explaining to one that in the past month I had only taken one half of a Claritin tablet (OTC in Canada) when seasonal allergies got to me and waited 30 minutes to see if it did the job before taking the other half, which I didn't need; a package of 18 lasts me 2 yrs. When I ate grains & dairy, I needed both Claritin and Sudafed daily to breathe.

My brain always feels sharper when I've eaten plenty of cholesterol and salt.

Last edited by deirdra : Sat, Sep-22-18 at 16:45.
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  #11   ^
Old Sat, Sep-22-18, 16:37
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s93uv3h s93uv3h is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WereBear
I'm resigned to being regarded as a "nut" by huge segments of the public. They are convinced "drugs are lifesaving" and I'm one of those alternative healing, anti-science, fanatics.
I'm right there with you. I'll start my sixth decade in a few months and take zero drugs.

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  #12   ^
Old Sat, Sep-22-18, 17:38
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cotonpal cotonpal is offline
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I will be 70 in December. I take no prescription drugs and I can't remember the last time I took an over the counter drug. My dental hygienist always asks me what drugs I take and I always tell her none. Since I've been seeing her for around a decade and we've talked health and diet she has never questioned my answer but I've never really thought about how few of the people to whom she asks that question answer "none", especially people my age. She also is aware that I walk the 2.5 miles to the office and back, not a common practice I'm sure.
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  #13   ^
Old Sat, Sep-22-18, 21:35
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Ms Arielle Ms Arielle is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pashta
I learned a couple of days ago from Dr. Georgia Ede that our brains NEED cholesterol, LOTS of cholesterol, and our brains actually MAKE their own cholesterol! I am afraid statins hurt brains because of this fact and maybe that's why it causes ALS-like conditions...

Here's the link again, which I got on this website in a different thread:
https://www.peak-human.com/home/dr-...-of-plant-foods


Ill check this site out in a moment .....

Once I understood the importance of cholesterol, the many jobs and chemicals its converted to, I surely did NOT understand the anti-cholesterol movement. totally senseless. DANDR gave a good description of how cholesterol works, and it made sense. Not much new information seems to have changed what is in DANDR.... unless Dr E has more to add. Off to read her update.
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  #14   ^
Old Sat, Sep-22-18, 22:04
M Levac M Levac is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WereBear
Sounds like it’s a lot more information than the poor guy has gotten so far.

Yeah, probably. I've read quite a bit about that for my own purposes while looking for the cause of my problem.

Standard treatment for low testosterone is testosterone injection for the rest of one's life, commonly called HRT. That is, if a doc eventually diagnoses him with that, but at 25yo? No way is that gonna happen. Instead, docs will refer him to a psycho babbler cuz it's all in his head, right? I just skimmed that website he talks about, propeciahelp.com, the list of symptoms is longer than for what I got. There's no way a doc will be able to sift through that, especially since there's no way any one man will list them in any sort of comprehensive way for the doc to make a proper diagnosis.

But look at that list again. That's the list of symptoms for low testosterone. The lower it is, the longer the list, the more severe the symptoms. It shows just how essential testosterone is in men for overall health.

And look at the explanation. No mention of low testosterone, as if PFS was a completely different thing. It's not. PFS, chemical castration, low testosterone, they're all exactly the same thing. A doc though, couldn't begin to make the connection.

I think a fair point is that docs have the power to prescribe, but nowhere near the ability to understand the consequences of that, let alone to fix any of the bad ones. It's not in their curriculum, they're not trained for that. I guess it's possible that by happenstance, the guy will get some real help down the line, but the chance of that is slim to none. He's gotta go through a general GP that gets it first, ya? The amount of medical/diet/health/whatever information I got from the intarwebs, compared to what I got from docs, is mindboggling. To put it bluntly, docs don't know Jack from S***.

Another fair point is that collectively, docs probably know a whole lot about medicine and health, but there's no way a single one knows what the group knows. This is the crux of the problem right here. The entry point into proper diagnosis and proper treatment begins with the doc (a GP) who knows the least about anything, or more appropriately knows the bare minimum about everything, but in this case not enough to direct the patient properly. Normally, when the GP can't fix it right there, he refers the patient to a specialist, that's what I'm talking about here. But in my personal experience, this just becomes a way to get rid of a patient they can't fix right there. They wanna help, but they just don't know how. But then if they don't know how, how can they possibly know which specialist to refer to?

Here's an advice I just thought up about that. If it's obvious the GP can't fix it right there or if there's doubt, and then he refers you to somebody else, don't go any deeper in that system, cuz nobody has any idea how wrong it's gonna go from here. Here's another advice, always always always get a second opinion. It used to be that this second opinion was gotten from another doc. Problem with that in this era is that all docs are trained exactly the same, and draw the same conclusions. There's no possibility of a different diagnosis when any doc is given the exact same information. On the other hand, when that information is incomplete, the possibility of a false diagnosis, or multiple false diagnosis (cuz it's totally possible none of them get it right) goes right up to near 100%. So, in this era, we get this second opinion from the mass of information available to us with a few clicks, and a whole lotta readin and discussin and sharin and some experimentin.
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  #15   ^
Old Sun, Sep-23-18, 07:11
BigJim1 BigJim1 is offline
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I wish this forum had a "like" button, I would light this thread up with likes. Doctors don't cure, they treat symptoms. If cured, they would be out of business.

My wife is diabetic, the more meds she takes for diabetes, the higher her numbers go. She cut back to one med and her numbers dropped a lot. Every time we go to a doctor, they try to push statins on us, we tell them we will not take that garbage. We did take them at one time and the side effects are horrible. Doctors are just about money now days, they could care less.

I have a thyroid disorder, I have yet to talk with a doctor who actually understands. All they want to do is keep me in their number bracket, they could care less if I have no energy or feel like crap.

My wife's numbers are coming down since we started low carb, we are losing weigh and feel better. My throid will always demand meds so I am stuck there. I like this thread, you all are spot on.

Last edited by BigJim1 : Sun, Sep-23-18 at 07:21.
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