Allergy Medicines Suck

So I've been fighting some kind of cold/flu/allergy thing for what seems like the millionth time this year and it's only March, and my doctor believes that I get this histamine kind of reaction- maybe a cold, then the reaction, maybe allergies that feel a lot like a cold, neither of us know for sure. He suggested, based on his own personal experience which seemed similar to him, a combination of an inhaler thingy to use once a day, which is usually prescribed for asthma; a pill used for seasonal allergy sufferers, and a capsule which is supposed to help chronic coughs. This is in addition to the other meds I take for a couple of typical middle-aged things. I hate pills. They annoy me. Seems to me that for every pill that's supposed to fix something, they create other issues from side effects, which are solved by- you guessed it- another pill.

Now, I'm sure EVERYONE knows that Claritin, for instance, has been shown to be effective for only 30% of the population, yet it's one of the most frequently prescribed allergy meds. Did you really know that only 1/3 of people are actually helped by this drug if you already take it? Do you know if it helps you at all or not? Do they mention this fact at any point during their television commercial? That seems like a pretty low chance that this would work, doesn't it? Doesn't it make you mad? I don't take Claritin, but someone once prescribed it for me a long time ago, and it did nothing for me, so I stopped. What really made me mad was that this is only one drug of many. How many others have been studied and found to be mostly ineffective, and yet get prescribed all the time?

Meanwhile, I was reading the literature that comes with one of the meds for this cold/allergy/histamine thing I've got. Keep in mind that it's for a cough, sinus inflammation in my eyes, nasal passages, laryngitis, etc. So what are the common side effects listed for one of the pills? Oh, and I've been popping antacids all week. Here's a direct quote from the manufacturer's literature: "the most common side effects include stomach pain, stomach or intestinal upset, heartburn, tiredness, fever, stuffy nose, cough, flu, upper respiratory infection, dizziness, headache..."

So how do you know if this stuff is treating the above symptoms or causing them or both? That's the symptoms we were trying to fix! Nowhere on the literature do they state what the effectiveness rate has been, and the drug companies are not required by law to do so. Why the heck not? I know why the drug companies wouldn't want to, but why are they allowed by the FDA ? If you knew that a medicine your doctor wanted to give you only had a 30% chance of helping you or less, would you think it was worth it? Would he or she prescibe it as often or tell you this before you tried it? Of course, you could be one of the few people who are actually helped by it. Personally, I'd rather know, decide if it's worth trying anyway, then decide if it seemed to help or not. What worries me is that there are actual statistics about the rate at which drugs are prescribed by doctors, and the more frequently they visit doctors with samples and giveaways, the more likely the doctor is to prescribe it. Big surprise, huh? The thing is, it's complicated, because people who can't afford to pay for the drugs because they don't have prescription drug coverage on their health insurance, or don't have insurance at all because they can't afford THAT, can only get the drugs from their docs as samples.

So here are all these drug company salesmen, getting seriously nice salaries, giving out lots of drug samples, toys and gifts, maybe even buying lunch for all the doctor's offices they visit, then there are the prime time tv commercials advertising the drugs. How much do you think the salaries, samples, and tv commercials cost? The drug companies say that we, the American public, which is being charged the most for their drugs, are absorbing the cost of research, but a lot of that research has been financed, partially or fully, by the U.S. government. And only the most profitable drugs end up on the shelves. Frequently, it's more likely that a Prilosec, for instance, gets tweaked a little and becomes Nexium, which is exactly the same thing except for one molecule which doesn't change the medicine at all. How much research did THAT take? Things that people don't have to take repeatedly over long periods of time- well, they're not that interested in developing those, are they?

So if we're being charged so much for drugs that many of us can't afford them, and if the government is funding the research that the drug companies say they're charging the American public for, why isn't our government insisting, like other countries, that we'll only pay so much for the drugs and no more, and why isn't the same government insisting on full disclosure of studies regarding those drugs which explore the efficacy and side effects of those drugs?

Just Thinking Out Loud...

This is for all you bible-thumpers of all religions:

Maybe it's just me, but I can't imagine letting people who sold each other their 12 year old daughters in marriage for sheep and goats and who lived in the desert in tents almost 6000 years ago govern all my daily decisions involving the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy. Even the Pope has decided once and for all to forgive Galileo (he didn't seem very sure until recently) for the outrageous sin of attempting to be objective and find some logic in the way the sun, moon and stars moved (or didn't move) about the heavens. They're even planning a statue to honor Galileo at the Vatican around the spot where he was incarcerated for this horrible plot. It only took hundreds of years to decide for sure. What could possibly take so long to figure out?

Living in a Reptilian Brain: My Lassie Sense

Recently, I've been stuck for topics I care enough to write about. But yesterday, it came to me: me and my Lassie sense. See, I've always had this theory about how my own crazy brain works: I seem to live in that brain stem area, which is sometimes called the reptilian or primitive brain area. You know, the one we share with lizards. I mentioned this to my husband and he looked online for a good description of the characteristics of this part of the brain, and sure enough, it's a pretty good description of me! You can go check it out too and see if you're a lot like this . Go here.

So what does all this have to do with Lassie and who or what is Lassie anyway? You can see her/him (there were many Lassies, all trained by the fabulous Rudd Weatherwax) here. My Lassie sense, which I suppose you could also call pre-cognition, intuition, empathy, etc., has only activated a couple times. The first was when my husband's appendix burst three months before we got married (a simple no would have been sufficient!). The way it works is that something just doesn't feel right when it seems that everything is normal. I don't know what, but it's important. In this particular case, my husband thought he had a stomach ache or something. But my Lassie sense ("aroo?", Lassie would bark, and then cock her head to the side. "What is it, girl? Is Timmy in the well?" would be the people response) told me that we'd better get him to doctor and hospital soon. Turned out to be just in time.

The second time my Lassie sense radar went up, we were driving home from a wedding and my husband had to pull over because he was dizzy. He thought it was an inner ear infection. But I switched seats and drove us home, rather badly because I don't really drive a stick shift, but I did get us there. Every fiber of my being said take him right to the hospital, but he said he'd be all right. This time it turned out that he'd had a massive heart attack. He's fine now, by the way, but he ended up having open heart surgery. That's a story in itself. Next time. I've had a Lassie sense for myself too. About a month after we started dating, we ate at a Chinese restaurant, where I enjoyed some soft shell crab. As we got back to his apartment, I told him he'd better get me home right away because something wasn't right. Sure enough, you guessed it, food poisoning. Felt like a mule in stilettos was using me for target practice, in between bouts in the water closet, where I seemed to always be 50% wrong no matter what end I tried. He said that if I was in space, I'd have been doing spin art. Very funny.

So what is my Lassie sense and how does it work? I really don't know. It's a kind of dumb animal feel or hunch like a finger tapping on your shoulder and pointing to something and you have no idea why. After a couple of times when the hunch seemed to be right, we've learned to pay attention. And my stubborn husband, who I had to drag to the hospital the first time under protest, now knows that if I tell him my Lassie sense is active, he should do what I tell him without question. You have no idea how rare that is for him! Geez!