Big Pharma Sells Risky Meds We Don’t Need for Disorders It Made Up That We Don’t Have

[SheilaT]

26. As others have pointed out already,

not only are there constant ads for very obscure and not very serious diseases (restless leg syndrome? Really?), they keep on lowering the threshold for many conditions, like blood sugar and blood pressure.

Certain specific statins are implicated in type 2 diabetes. A couple of years ago my doctor prescribed a statin for me for my high cholesterol (and it really was high), which worked amazingly well and quickly. And then my blood sugar rose. I rather quickly made the connection, thanks to the interwebs, and asked for a different one. I'd also been prescribed a med for high blood pressure.

Then I started getting what to me was a serious issue with diarrhea (sorry for the specifics, but they do matter) and noted that was one of the side effects of the bp medication. So I stopped taking that, and the symptom went away immediately. A couple of weeks ago I started the bp med again, and guess what symptom recurred?

I have a regular checkup scheduled in a couple of weeks, and I guess I'm going to have to tell my PCP that I won't take the meds any more.

I have, aside from high cholesterol most of my life, and high bp more recently (around the time my marriage came to an end -- coincidence?) have been incredibly healthy. I just don't get whatever is currently going around. I am more lively and have more stamina than most people my age. I'm 67. I find it highly annoying when my age mates start on on how they can't eat certain foods any more, or can't eat anything after 6pm. What is wrong with them, I ask. Maybe it's just the normal aging process, maybe it's a side effect of whatever meds they're taking, but I'm going to fall back on my own excellent health.

None of us live forever. As someone noted humorously he has Pre Death Syndrome. We all do.

I'm willing to trust my body. I don't smoke, never have. I eat reasonably well. I do a lot of home cooking, try to eat more veggies and fruit.

None of this is to suggest to anyone they ought to throw away their own medications. There are lots of things that genuinely require some med, but probably not as many things as we've been led to believe.

And as others have also noted, life style and diet are almost never addressed by the professionals or the drug companies.