When you seek the advice of your doctor for an ailment and the prescription pad comes out what follows can be months of addiction to a mind altering drug or painkiller. So many people inadvertently find they are addicted to pain killers and antidepressants when they were not warned it could happen. It is embarrassing and tough to deal with but it can change.
As it happens there are professionals, and others of course, trapped into a drug habit they cannot kick because to do so would involve time off work and the chance their employers or board of directors will find out they have a problem. The unresolved pain or condition becomes the justification for continuing to use medication; still depressed or having panic attacks creates a need to stay on the meds. Continuing problems justifies the drug use. It might help to understand that some doctors have been brainwashed into offering prescriptions as the only treatment choice. They do not have anything else to offer and some patients do not think they have been helped if they do not walk away with a prescription. To compound the problem, as a patient, you get the idea, when medication suppresses pain or symptoms, the problem is alleviated. Suppressing pain is not the answer. Turning a person into someone who does not care and cannot feel the pain anymore does not heal the problem, it suppresses it. Actual help is the discovery and alleviation of the underlying cause of the difficulty. Thankfully this new medical paradigm is becoming readily available in most areas of the country. There are thousands of doctors who are medical detectives and can help you out with minimal use of prescriptions drugs, often avoiding prescriptions completely. There is no question we need strong drugs when there are injuries requiring surgery with the aftermath of pain but mind altering drugs as a daily treatment is not a good idea.
Dr. Maulfair, attending a recent dinner given for doctors in our area as part of the CME requirements, asked the speaker, who was citing serotonin levels as justification for mind altering drug treatment, what the specific test was for determining serotonin levels in the brain of a patient. The speaker, paid by the drug company, stammered and said there was not one but “it would not matter anyway”. He thought there might be some new blood test that would measure some such thing. Fact is – no test to measure such things. The science does not exist to justify these drugs.
Depression, anxiety attacks, and pain are solved by doctors who care to discover the underlying reason of the symptom. Taking high quality mineral nutrients is the answer for some, the proper bio-identical hormones for others and life style and dietary changes for others works. Long walks and high dose vitamin D can be an answer as well. Is your doctor making such recommendations? Are they asking you questions that might reveal an underlying cause of your pain, whether physical or emotional? Are they recommending searching diagnostics to discover the reasons why? Do you need a chiropractor or physical therapist?
Why should we care? Because being happy, feeling well and strong is so important. Life cannot be easy and productive when you do not feel well. You cannot feel well when you are drugged, high, uncoordinated, or somehow miss seeing your actual environment. You cannot duplicate intentions of people and conversations when you are drugged, you misunderstand and do nonsequitur things causing upsets with the people around you; so it is a vicious cycle of not doing well both in life and physically. All this becomes very important when you find yourself 40+, the consequences of bad medical care start to add up and compound as we age.
Find a doctor who has more to offer than a pharmaceutical drugs. Use prescriptions only when they are essential and strive to lessen their use and you will be and feel better! When you ask for less medication and better recommendations than a prescription you will bring about change in the medical profession that is so badly needed. Doctors want to help you and you will get them thinking about another way to go about healing. When that happens we will have restored the patient/doctor relationship.