Too many people take too many pills
121–130 of 166 posts
Re: Too many people take too many pills
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a dramatic trope. I'm an american, born and raised as they say, and I've never seen that. It probably happens sometimes in places I'm not familiar with, but ... come on, it's absurd, anyone would be incapacitated by that many pills. I was thinking about this when watching The Shape of Water, Michael Shannon's character is in his car, arms shaking, pouring the whole pill bottle on his face ... It's a dramatic tro…
I wonder how much these tropes and storytelling techniques shifts the baselines of cultural norms. For example, a sitcom would often find it convenient to have friends meet daily in a bar and somehow drinking almost daily is perceived to be a normal thing to do.
Re: Too many people take too many pills
#123Re: Too many people take too many pills
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I bet most families have an unemployed adult that cooks. Grandma or older child or some such.
In communist Poland, both of my parents worked, and yet my mother cooked every day after work. Work + commute took her around 9 - 9.5 hours per day. On top of that, there were long queues to buy anything at the stores, so you were spending easily an extra hour shopping per day (not to mention spending time bartering with family and neighbors the goods you managed to buy, but didn't need for stuff you actually do need…
Re: Too many people take too many pills
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The more cardio the better, so consider endurance sports. The research vehemently disagrees with you, especially if you’re a woman.
I’ve never heard anyone claim that less exercise is better. Can you point to the research that “vehemently disagrees”?
Re: Too many people take too many pills
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Note the song was recorded in 1980.
And was probably referencing recreational drug use, not over-prescribed drug use.
There was lots of over-prescription targeting "house-wives" before the opioid crisis e.g. diet pills, sleeping pills and tranquillizers. Your 80s doctor would ply you with all sorts of amphetamines, barbiturates, quaaludes etc. Lots of these have since been withdrawn due to causing medical problems. Marilyn Monroe dying from a barbiturate overdose in the 60s.
Re: Too many people take too many pills
#127I hate these articles. While yes, this is true, it's also true that _many_ people have severe, untreated illness that they're just "toughing it out." My friend with BPD ruined his life because he's "stronger than the disorder, I don't need to take my meds" Spent millions foolishly, genius engineer - horrible story. Easily fixed.
In fact, these medications can worsen a patient's condition.
Re: Too many people take too many pills
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
And was probably referencing recreational drug use, not over-prescribed drug use.
Probably not. The meme of the "doped up women on prescription pills" has been a thing since probably the 50s. There was lots of over-prescription targeting "house-wives" before the opioid crisis e.g. diet pills, sleeping pills and tranquillizers. Your 80s doctor would ply you with all sorts of amphetamines, barbiturates, quaaludes etc. Lots of these have since been withdrawn due to causing medical problems. Marilyn M…
Society has for a long time felt that women's "hysterics" have warranted "medicating".
Re: Too many people take too many pills
#129I hate these articles. While yes, this is true, it's also true that _many_ people have severe, untreated illness that they're just "toughing it out." My friend with BPD ruined his life because he's "stronger than the disorder, I don't need to take my meds" Spent millions foolishly, genius engineer - horrible story. Easily fixed.
What's common is to prescribe SSRIs and similar medication for all kinds of psychiatric illnesses, including BPD. The evidence that this would help in the long-term is vague to non-existant, and I'd avoid trusting it (as with almost all research on anti depressants).
The best-researched facts about SSRI antidepressants are the increase in suicide rates and the "side effects", which are still often underreported, and include problems with basically all bodily systems, because serotonine is an importat t neurotransmitter. Not to forget about
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-SSRI_sexual_dysfunction
SSRIs can also reduce life expectancy.
Personally, after being on an antidepressant (Effexor) for 6 years, I can also say that they massively reduced mental stability and self-awareness for me.
There are many meta-studies about this by now, somehow ADs are still seen aa evidende-based medicine comparable to insuline for diabetes. This is far from the truth, the mechanisms of action are poorly understood and effectiveness has been painted in an unrealistic way by pharma companies who make these pills.
Re: Too many people take too many pills
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Diet/sleep/exercise/sunlight are always the first step, and if you don’t at least get those, you’ll be hard-pressed to feel decent no matter what else you do, regardless of whether you have other medication-dependent conditions. That said, there are way too many people out there who have no experience with conditions which require medication, who seem to think that those things are a substitute for medication rather…
> That said, there are way too many people out there who have no experience with conditions which require medication, who seem to think that those things are a substitute for medication rather than a baseline that must be kept up alongside medication. It is complicated. Some people have mental health conditions which are always going to require medication. Some people have mental health conditions which are never goi…
That summer after my first year of college, I spent my days moving stuff around in a furniture store and golfing 9 holes after work was done, and weaned myself off of it. I haven't relapsed into the hospital in two decades since, despite more than a few high risk periods I've gone through over that time, and a lapse during fatherhood in my ability to keep up with exercise as much as would be ideal. I don't know whether my brain was sufficiently re-wired by those 9 months of pills or what, but it's a bit strange to me that essentially every psychiatrist would have insisted something like this was impossible.