One more for the docs....
 

One more question for the docs...

How do y'all feel about pharma co.s advertising prescription only meds on TV, etc? Sure, they all say "ask your doctor" but is it a PITA for you or does it create a slightly more educated patient?

I would hardly call advertising a source of education. It's a source of income for the drug cos.

Example, Celebrex, no more successful avoiding GI upset/bleeding (by a pretty large study) than ibuprofen, naproxen etc., but primary care docs get asked for it all the time.

I am completely against advertising drugs on TV. It doesn't create a more educated patient, because the drug companies try to make their product sound as good as possible (of course...they are trying to sell it). In medicine there are ALWAYS two and often multiple sides to each story and a drug may be a good or bad choice for a patient for multiple reasons. People need to realize that just as the Big Mac at McDonald's NEVER looks like the one on TV (and eating one won't make your life magically wonderful), the same goes for prescription drugs.

Advertising prescription drugs is prohibited in Sweden.

Internet, however, is sometimes causing a bit of frustration. Parents searching for information on different diseases and treatments, gathering scattered, fragmentary information that they shove in the face of the doctor. Accusing the doctor of malpractice. -"It says so on the Internet !!"

There is one that claims to reduce a woman's period to three days. Side effects include the danger of blood clots, strokes, and heart attack....I dunno.....seems as if sometimes the cure is worse than the disease!!

i know one doc who self prescribes hi dose B.C. pills to avoid the hassle of a period, peroid. she has been doing it fior years, and smokes!!

Absolutely. They should either make EVERYTHING available without prescription and let people take their own risks, or ban prescription drug advertising.

The antidepressant ads are the most ridiculous. After watching those ads you'ld be convinced that everyone needs meds.

Which brings to mind the following question...

Why do antidepressants generally have a disclaimer that tendency to suicide may increase?

Seems to me that antidepressants are supposed to make people feel good about themselves!!

What I really want to see is some decent ads for male and female enhancement; you know, before and after and so forth. Maybe even a, "Hey, watch me put this big baby to use. http://www.pelicanparts.com/support/.../pimpflash.gif

Depressed persons rarely commit suicide at the lowest point of their depression. They don't have the will or any functional capacity at that point. Suicides happen generally during the moderately depressed state.

The suicide risks associated with antidepressants are related to the diagnosis, not the treatment.

I believe that increases in both suicidal and homicidal ideation is associated with certain anti-depressants. Luvox, Prozac, and others of similar action are the chief suspects.

How about the Herpes drug commercials?

I want to hang out on the beach with babes...

I don't think the data's really clean on those associations. In fact I think untreated depression has a higher suicide risk than depression treated with either drug. (I could be wrong about that).

My (now deceased ex-wife) didn't think of suicide, but more than once she begged me and our two daughters to kick her.. Great for kids who were at the time 12 and 10 years of age. So I freely admit I have a wee bit of bias re: the effectiveness of psychotherapy and antidepressants. The worst part of the day was coming home and wondering just how the evening would be....

My experiences are no benchmark for others to measure by; everyone's experiences are different. Mine left me with a great degree of sorrow for those with severe emotional problems, and grateful that I am (reasonably) unscathed, although it was very rough for a few years after the relationship ended.

From my understanding, there are specific drugs that have been suggested to increase suicide rates among the depressed, mainly younger patients. Whether this is causal or not has yet to be determined. The FDA is pretty quick to act on things like this, often before the full data are known, which is probably as it should be. At this point it is a warning to physicians to use caution when prescribing anti-depressants and inform the patient of the risks.

As for the rest of the discussion, I feel pretty strongly that American society is spiraling into a mindset of drug dependance and that we will be paying the price soon. Everyone is at fault, from physicians to drug companies to patients. It seems that everything has to have a label attached to it these days and, by God there oughta be a pill for that!!

Eventually we are going to figure out that the more pills you take the less healthy you become. I have seen multiple patients who are on a drug for depression, one for insomnia, one for anxiety, one for chronic pain, one for fatigue, and one for irritable bowels and guess what....they aren't happy.

Look at Adolf Hitler for a prime example of drug dependency long term....injected with drugs in the morning to make him alert, and injected with sedatives at night to allow him to sleep. And that does not include the "cocktails" of drugs he ingested during the day....

Drug dependency has been around a long, long time.

That's why one should work hard to keep one's dependency down to no more than one, two, or three drugs. Mine are caffeine, testosterone, and adrenalin. I sometimes lubricate those three with alcohol, in moderation of course.