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FEELING SIDE-EFFECTS

LAUREN H | JUNE 07, 2010 | BEING A CAREGIVER

2 Comments

I don't understand why there still is medicine out here that has side effects that will kill you rather than cure you. I understand there is a trial and error process, but do no one take in comsideration of the issues that could happen to the patient. Radiation for cancer patients is one thing. I watched my grandmother go from feeling great to feeling like the side-effects will never end. Although she was apart of a experimental drug group; she was the only one to still be alive. Everyone see all these commercials of a type of medicine that will help you, but they have side-effects that will make you worse than you started out. Not to mention that when the side-effects are eing mentioned they speed it up so you only catch most if not all of them. What kind of medicine are we letting our loved ones take; if all the medicine that is suppose to be making them better is actually making them worse?

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	Paul Milligan 06/08/2010 12:12:58 PM	Lauren, Sorry to read about your grandmother, but your questions and concerns are good ones. All medications that require prescriptions do so because they are not safe to use without close supervision by a doctor. Few, if any, are "smart enough" to work only on the problem area without affecting another part of the body. The medicines that are more good than bad- come to market. The others go by the wayside. Unfortunately, sometimes the side effects are not fully discovered except during the study phases. Medicine has made enormous advances in the last 60 or 70 years. It wasn't that long ago that we were using toxic mercury to treat infections. Fortunately, there are hundreds of lifesaving medications now; almost all of them have manageable side-effects. It was honorable that your grandmother participated in the study. Hopefully, she received some benefit along with helping advance the knowledge of medicine.
	Rebekah 06/09/2010 09:09:39 AM	I think that this litigation-happy society might also have something to do with the endless warnings about side effects. Reading those lists of possible side effects, you would think everything could kill you! But I think the drug companies HAVE to put that stuff on there because on the off-chance that someone does have a terrible reaction, they can say "we warned you." I take a daily prescription medication that can have TERRIBLE side effects for a lot of people. When I started I had to go up by tiny doses every week and get blood tests every week to see how my system was reacting. My doctor, thank goodness, was really careful. As a patient, I had to decide whether I was willing to risk some side effects while starting the medication. Since I'd had no luck with other meds for that condition, I decided to risk it. Even though it CAN be very dangerous to some people, I am very happy that this medicine is out there because it really works well for me.

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