Americans just LOVE drugs

[billyskank]

Seriously, I've been watching you all. Every single one of you knows EVERYTHING about every drug, prescrip and non-prescrip. You all have tales about being on them, and which ones are good for what pain and what ailment. Anybody asking for advice about drugs gets all the advice and anecdotes they could possibly wish for and more.

All I have in the cupboard is an old box of aspirin. :D

[lildreamer316]

1. Funny you should say that.

considering I just told someone I had a test kit.
Are you following me??
haha.

[billyskank]

2. I read it

but I wasn't talking about recreational drugs. :hi:

[lildreamer316]

3. See..

now, I actually do NOT like the ones that are NOT recreational. I am more suspicious of those than the ones that are less....um...you know.
I've taken xanex (sp?) like..twice. Not really my thing. Never anything else. I am just plain scared of them, 'cause I've seen so many ppl get addicted and act really stupid on them.
Is that weird?

[billyskank]

4. I don't think it's so wierd

I mean, I'm not sure that taking drugs for recreation is the wisest thing ever, BUT...in all my time of doing that sort of thing (now reformed) I never once met a "drug pusher." I don't think the evil drug pusher of middle-class fears really exists - the person who gives the first score free to get people addicted: I don't believe anybody does that. (And nobody gets addicted to anything after just the first few hits).

Actually I do think drug pushers exist, but they wear suits and put adverts on the telly. These are the people who are making medical conditions out of everyday experiences of life. They also never hawk a pill that actually cures anything - that's not profitable - they only TREAT things.

So no, I don't think you're wierd for not trusting these medicines at all.

[lildreamer316]

6. Yep. Nail on head there.

I mean, what I do...sometimes the ppl give us the first few on the cheap,but..we already wanted them, or we wouldn't have asked. It's never pushed.
I was clean for years..I'm actually having a reverse childhood in a way. I never did anything until a few years ago. It's a way of letting myself go...
but hey, TMI. Sorry to overdo that.
Yep, Americans do love drugs. Hell, with Bush, can you blame us??
Sigh.
Thpppt...:silly:

[Drum]

5. heh heh

I don't even do aspirin anymore.

:evilgrin:

[Heidi]

7. Not all of us.

I haven't taken prescription medication in more than 10 years, and the only OTC medication I take is ibuprofen once in a blue moon. I do have a Dramamine tucked away in my wallet for when I have to travel by ferry. :hi:

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

8. Damn. You're boring.

:P

Dramamine for a ferry? How rocky can the ride on a ferry be?

[Heidi]

17. Smarty-pants!

:rofl:

I've never had to take that Dramamine that I keep in my wallet, but it's more the smell of some of the stinky poorly groomed people on the ferry, in combination with the rocking, that puts me on the edge of nausea sometimes. :puke:

[billyskank]

14. You're not French either then

They love drugs too! :hi:

[Heidi]

16. And Freedom Fries!

:rofl: :P

[billyskank]

18. Zut alors!

:*

[Dangerously Amused]

24. Hi, my name is DA and I'm a stinky French woman addicted to DU and

... dark chocolate.


I need help.



:cry:

[buddhamama]

28. i'm in good company then

i heart DU and dark chocolate also. And, I heart D_A ! :) :hug:

[Dangerously Amused]

29. Hey babe!

:loveya:

[billyskank]

30. Hi DA!

:hi:

:hug:

[Dangerously Amused]

39. billysweet!

You are wa-aaay better than my Happy Pills!







But even more addictive!



:loveya:

[billyskank]

42. Awwwww

:hug: :loveya:

[mduffy31]

9. I am familiar with the drugs

Because it is my job to be familiar with them. I am a nurse and before I give the drugs to my patients I want to know what they do and how they work so I can recognize if they are having a bad reaction to them. That is what was taught to me in nursing school, now I know there is a lot of nurses that don't take that extra step but I do. All of my co-workers come and ask me if they have a question about our patients drugs.

[Guava Jelly]

10. Love drug.. Viagra

:)

[KG]

49. Viagra rocks

just don't ask me how i know this. O8)

[vickitulsa]

11. Awrighty then.

But ease up on the "idoandodrugs" superiority complex, k? ;)

My brother is a senior pharmacist at a major hospital and what I know from that insider would make regular folks freak.

Actually, there are, as you say, drug pushers out there -- it's just that they now wear suits and can advertise direct to the public on the teevee, radio, magazines, billboards, yard signs, candy wrappers.....

My bro says that our healthcare system began its nosedive in terms of patient care the day that Big Pharma was legally permitted to advertise to potential customers -- er, users -- uh, I mean patients.

And I have no doubts that there exist actual cures for some prevalent chronic diseases like diabetes -- ones that Big Pharma's research departments developed long ago but then made a financial decision to lock up on the back shelf in a secure vault. No profit in curing disease, just in treating it forever!

When patient care began to take a back seat to the for-profit approach to the practice of medicine, it was all over but the suffering and dying -- especially for the poor!


Aspirin, btw, is a very potent and dangerous drug. :D Can eat up your stomach lining in a few minutes, cause perforation of stomach wall, cause profuse and life-threatening bleeding...... now go throw that bottle out before you weaken and USE some of that stuff one day! :hi:

[BreweryYardRat]

21. And to replace it, get some ibuprofen (Advil).

Don't get acetamenophin (Tylenol), because if you drink alcohol with it, it'll destroy your liver. Literally. When I was in high school, one of the teachers died from that combination.

[vickitulsa]

33. Glad you mentioned that!

Acetaminophen (Tylenol) is also dangerously overused by both patients/consumers and many manufacturers of products for colds, flu, insomnia, and at least a dozen other ailments or irritating conditions that folks buy OTC (over the counter) meds for by the millions in our "take a pill and chill" culture.

This is a problem especially because so many people never bother to read the label's list of ingredients when they buy an OTC product, so it's real easy to get way more acetaminophen than we should... enough to be dangerous or even fatal.

Like caffeine, APAP (Pharma's abbreviation for acetaminophen) is an added ingredient in a large number of products. READ LABELS! It's important and could help you avoid APAP overdose, which can do serious and irreversible damage to major organs.

Since my brother Steve was diagnosed with Type II diabetes a couple of weeks ago, I've been researching that one as well as talking to people I know who are or WERE diabetic but who have found non-insulin-injection ways to combat or even defeat it. Turns out my neighbor has completely reversed her diabetic condition by using an herbal remedy and smoking pot. Her nephrologist advised her to start smoking the pot, something she hadn't done before, after she'd had a kidney removed. Then a couple more doctors she had (she was a very ill lady at one point) approved the pot route, too, and she was sold on giving it a try. It worked for her!

She also got off a really high dosage level of daily oxycodone (which wasn't even controlling her pain) with the same approach. They'd even implanted a morphine pump in her body, and THAT wasn't controlling the pain either.

I found the pain remedy she experienced especially astonishing, because I am a chronic pain patient and depend on 110 mg / day of oxycodone just to endure life and movement, and have for over five years. Would LOVE to find another way to deal with this problem or eliminate it, so I'm about to go talk with her again today after doing my diabetic and pain research last night and this morning! I have high hopes because I saw the evident proof of her claims right in front of me. I'm a skeptic, but I have an open mind for demonstrably promising possibilities. :D

Also, here is some info about a VERY promising medical/technological approach for curing diabetes by some folks who seem to be on the right track from that angle.

http://www.islet.org/3.htm

Not hard to understand, and a real eye-opener.

Just read, also, that some years ago Big Pharma offered $30,000,000 to an herbal products company that has been getting very good results from their diabetes treatment/cure -- if they would remove that product from the market!

Haven't had time to confirm this elsewhere yet, but you can bet I'll be looking into that further as well.

Always good to know a lot about medicine and other areas of healthcare simply because we are such prolific consumers of treatments these days -- thanks in large part to the adverts and dirty tactics of Big Pharma and other skulduggerous entities in the business of making money from illness in humans.

So yeah, we here at DU do know our drugs -- but that's not a BAD thing! :rofl: :hi: We're just pretty damn smart people!................

[av8rdave]

27. Isn't that the truth...

One of the reasons that you see big pharma and most allopathic physicians badmouth herbal/holistic/dietary therapies. No money in that, and no money in actually curing something.

[Deja Q]

12. Aren't you glad we know nothing about sex?

:rofl:

[billyskank]

15. What is this thing you call sex?

:shrug:

[Robeson]

13. Ever seen our commercials? It's shoved down our throats from the...

...time we are born. Just take a pill, and you'll feel better.

Follow the money.

[Heidi]

19. Better living . . . through chemistry.

You nailed it, my friend. :hi:

[Dangerously Amused]

22. Follow the money. YES, YES and YES.

Spot on.


Also with respect to vickitulsa's post above, so very true that a historic advent of patient health care decline happened with allowing Big Pharma to advertise. Now people go to doctors demanding Wonderdrug X that they saw on tv.

Also true that we have CURES for diseases and illnesses locked up in the vaults of Big Pharma's corporate dungeons. Same as we have lightbulbs that will burn forever, pantyhose which will never run and automobiles which will run wonderfully on various forms of efficient, low-cost, clean-burning, renewable alternate fuels, etc. etc., etc.

An excellent example here: http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/


But there is no money in curing people or creating products which people need purchase only once or twice in a lifetime. So the patents for all these formulas/ideas are purchased for exhorbitant fees from the inventors and quietly slipped away for "research and development," never to see the light of day again.

Another underlying cause and better kept secret of our pill popping culture is that Big Pharma is heavily involved in manipulating our med student's minds into espousing the idea that medicine is the only treatment for everything. Big Pharma underwrites a great deal of our med student's education through scholarships and grants for those who embrace their corporate objectives, and the money keeps flowing as long as they keep promoting that cause. Who wants to graduate from med school with debt when free cash for tuition and living expenses is waving right in front of their noses?

So very sad. And infuriating.




On edit: Just ran across this and thought I would throw it in FWIW:

"In recent decades mind-body therapies have made tremendous strides, and yet the prejudice against them is enormous. For example, do you believe that high cholesterol is the chief cause of premature heart attacks? Millions of people do, and yet the classic long-term study on premature heart attacks that began at Harvard after WW II didn't find that the chief risk factor was high cholesterol. The chief risk was unexamined psychological issues. Men who confronted their personal problems in their twenties were less likely to die of a premature heart attack than those who didn't. This correlation was stronger than the correlation with cholesterol, only treating high cholesterol, being materialistic, fit the bias of medicine better.

The same holds true in a variety of diseases, Cancer is correlated to emotional repression. Early retirement or the sudden loss of a spouse shortens life expectancy. High stress, or even working on the night shift, causes a host of disorders to become more likely. The fact that doctors don't take these factors seriously enough isn't going to make them go away. The need to build the mind-body bridge is crucial, and until we face that fact, pushing drugs and performing surgery will be a drastic, often short-sighted mode of treatment for millions of people."


Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/im-not-hysterical-its-_b_30601.html

[idgiehkt]

44. great post

thanks for all that info.

If I had more time to think about it I'd get even pissed'r but I have to go to work soon...that kind of stuff drives me nuts to think about.

[Dangerously Amused]

45. Thanks.

I know, I have to force myself to not think about that stuff sometimes. It's maddening.

[xchrom]

20. mmmmm.....drugs

[nickgutierrez]

23. Yay drugs!

:beer:

:P

[NewWaveChick1981]

25. I only love two prescription drugs and one over-the-counter...

:hi: I love my oral contraceptives because they keep me from getting pregnant and they control a hormone imbalance. :) I like my blood pressure med because it keeps my hereditary high blood pressure under control. And I love ibuprofen since it gets rid of headaches.

Other than that, I never take any other kind of meds. :hi:

[billyskank]

32. There you go bringing SEX into everything again

:cry:


:P

:hi:

[NewWaveChick1981]

40. I can't help it. I was born that way.

:P And I am actually taking a prescription drug that has to do with...*gasp*...sex... :P :rofl: :evilgrin:

:* :loveya:

[billyskank]

41. Mmmm hmmm

:*

:loveya:

[Mutley]

26. I just took two ibuprofen right before I clicked on this thread.

:D

:hi: :hug:

[billyskank]

31. Please tell us about it

:D

:hi:

[Mutley]

46. Girly stuff.

You don't wanna know.

:P

:hi:

[billyskank]

47. Girly stuff is my favourite!

Okay, not all girly stuff. :D

:hi:

[Mutley]

48. I think this falls in the girly stuff you don't

wanna know about.

:7

[Random_Australian]

34. It's true! It's true! They even have slang words like 'percs'!

It amazes me!

[buddhamama]

35. not all americans

i am the exception to the rule. i can't remember the last time i took a prescribed med, an illegal drug,...

i avoid over-the-counter stuff too.

is coffee considered a drug? it probably is, if not it should be, i am guilty of partaking of the bean.

[billyskank]

36. Not for the purposes of this thread

I guess people do get addicted to coffee (I get headaches without it), but mostly people drink it because they like the taste. I think it's a different sort of thing.

Partaking of the bean... :rofl:

:hug:

[cobalt1999]

37. I'm with you.

I don't take prescription drugs, or recreational drugs, I don't even take aspirin.

I do consume caffine (coffee/tea) and alcohol (mostly red wine).

[AirmensMom]

38. You're right about that!

Go to a doctor for anything in this country, and they'll give you the latest pill to treat the symptoms, courtesy of the salesman who just stopped by and left samples. Then they give you another pill to reduce the side effects ... and so on, until you're on a pile of meds and still feeling rotten. If you refuse to take them, they write "uncooperative patient" on your chart. Oops, that means you need an antidepressant. Refuse that and they recommend a psychiatrist, while the root of the problem remains a mystery. It's rare to find a doctor who will listen to the patient, make an accurate clinical diagnosis, and recommend a course of treatment that doesn't include a handful of drugs (and may include dietary and environmental changes). Such a doctor probably doesn't have (or want) privileges in the local hospitals. :shrug:
On top of that, people are under the impression that over-the-counter meds are harmless. I've seen people pop Tyleno and Advil like they're candy. :scared:


Oh ... Hi billy! :hi: :loveya: :hug:

[billyskank]

43. Hi AirmensMom!

:hi:

:hug:

:loveya:

[Lady Freedom]

50. We know so much thanks to DARE classes!!

All I knew was that drugs would kill me if I did them. Then I went to DARE classes at school and learned all about them.

[NMMNG]

51. Knowledge isn't love

I know a lot about the fundies but I certainly don't love them. :puke:

One reason I know a great deal about medications is because for nearly 20 years I've worked with people who take a wide variety of them. I'm responsible for knowing what the medications are, what they are for and what the potential side effects are.

I also take medications of my own for chronic intractable migraines I've had since I was a teenager and other conditions. I'd love to get through life never taking anything but it's just not possible. My philosophy on drugs is avoid them if you can, use them if you need them.