Medications and Side Effects

Medicines and Side Effects
Pharmaceutical companies and scientist have come a long way over the years in a search to help an individual with any health condition that may consume them. These conditions can be as small as one having acne problem to something as big as diabetes or organ failure. Medications have saved many lives, but also have claimed just as many. The lives lost, may have come from side effects that can arise with taking certain medications. Some would ask if it is really worth being on a medication that can cause one to become suicidal just so they can get some sleep. This is an issue that drug manufacturers and doctors are studying, trying to treat a medical condition without causing another condition to arise. This is a task that can take years for a resolution to arrive. Many people these days don’t have years to wait to get the answers about side effects, they want it now. It must be understood why do prescriptions made to help us, tear a body down just as fast.
In an article called How Pot, Cocaine, and Hunger Intersect in the Brain, which was published by Gregory Mone in the Discover Magazine, writes about how a medicine called Rimonabant was originally a weight-loss drug but is later proven to show depression as a side effect. The article also talks about how drugs, such as cocaine and marijuana, and a person’s metabolism affect the brain. When it comes to drugs, cocaine affects ones metabolism by acting as a stimulant and affects the central nervous system and marijuana may be looked at as a depressant. Both are based on how one reacts and if it enters the body quickly. There are medicines that can help someone become clean from hard addictions such as smoking cigarettes, doing cocaine or heroin. There are three different types of anti-addiction meds, antagonists, agonist and partial agonist. The medicines may boost dopamine to mimic street drugs but at the same time slowly decrease addiction. Antagonists act as a receptor blocker, by blocking the dopamine from a drug so the drug does not work. Agonist, mimic the drug but without the side effects, withdrawals and pain. The final is partial agonist which also mimics the drug but not to the existent that agonist medicines will, as well as it will block dopamine so one can be weaned off a drug. Not all side effects are dangerous; examples are Viagra it can be used to treat pulmonary hypertension disorders buy widening arteries enough to lower blood pressure. Benadryl can be used as a sleep aid, for it causes drowsiness as well as Tylenol PM. Benadryl may also aid in treating Parkinson’s disease, and motion sickness. So sometimes side effects are an exactly what is needed to make a medication work. But that’s not where the fear lies. It’s in the drugs that help an outbreak of herpes at the risk of a heart attack, liver failure and stroke. Those are the side effects that patients of these medicines that make them concerned.
As someone working in the pharmacy, and having witnessed many patients refill as many as one to twelve prescriptions at a time. Some patients laugh and make jokes about how it all started with just one medicine and now they have ten. Other patients seem to be more on the lucky side and just have to take one. When talking to these patients, some seem to regret that they have started taking medicine(s) in the first place. One might explain how their first medicine was for treating something as simple as gout that later lead them to be on diabetic medicines. Which now, they are taking medicines for sleep and antacids along with everything else. And at the end of them explaining their medical history, they end with “They must be taken in order to stay alive.” That statement raises a lot of questions for many people. Why do they have to take so many prescriptions to stay alive when all that was wrong with them was one thing? Are these side effects of medicines that they really have not looked into as much as they do to the side effects of suicide or depression? Some may think that all side effects should be looked at equally but how can pharmaceutical companies profit if people are committing suicide. It’s better if people keep taking prescription drugs that lead to another condition, only to add more prescription medication to ones diet.
In interviewing Warren Streck a Chief Pharmacist Supervisor a employee of Kaiser Permanente, he had given insight on the issues of medicines and there side effects. Some topics that came from interviewing him are new studies and personal opinions which may be agreed upon by others or not. Some more research may need to be done on one’s own to determine if one agrees or not. One view was the idea of medicines being made to trick the mind that it fixed what’s wrong instead of actually treating what’s wrong. Being a pharmacist and knowing how the chemicals react, Streck does agree that some medicines will trick the mind for example like how diet pills do; making one feel like they are no longer hungry. Warren Streck, has mentioned there is a study called Pharmacogenomics being lead by a Clinical Pharmacist inside Kaiser Permanente, involving people’s genes. The study will allow a medicine to be made particularly for one person who may have high cholesterol, to be treated with out the side effects based off of a person’s race, gender and even environment. The Benefits of Pharmacogenomics are it will be more efficient, safer, have accurate dosage, and better screening. Warren was asked if medications can lead to possibly side effects such as depression, and responded by stating “Yes, any long term use of a medication can cause depression.” This is why studies like Pharmacogenics are developed, to look at possibly ways to help someone with a disease or medical condition to be treated without the side effects.
The awareness of side effects have become more of a big concern to people these days, that many have decided to take a more natural approach. Although herbal medicines still have its positive and negative reviews. Those for herbal medicines believe it has less of a risk of side effects and more effective. One may do an herbal remedy for a headache not only to be relieved of that but of a stomach ache as well. These medicines are all natural coming from plants or herbs of some sort, without all the added ingredients that pharmaceutical companies use to make a drug. It also goes through studies and is documented but just hasn’t been approved by the FDA. Herbal treatments also give the body the minerals and vitamins it needs which helps get rid or prevents a disease. With that being said, those against herbal treatment believe that since it’s not regulated by the FDA it is not validated to actually help. Pharmaceutical companies state that because they use active ingredient from the same plants used in herbal remedies, they are more effective. One would also state that herbal medicines should only be used for short term use such as a common cold, but not used to treat long term or serious conditions like high cholesterol.
In conclusion, medicines are an ongoing research in its own to help people with any health condition one may have. But it may lead to other issue to arise just as well. With more technology and research, now a day, studies on how medications react to ones genes may eliminate the possible side effects and eventually lead to curing diseases. But will this search for side effect free medicines may come at the cost of many more lives before a resolution comes. But how much long is the question that leaves many patients not taking a prescription for cholesterol in fear that it will give them diabetes. This leads them to lean more towards herbal treatments, or to some, no treatment at all.




Works Cited
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Warren Streck, Letreena Bland. Personal interview. 15 March 2012