I have a very bad immune system. This lack of bodily defenses has started when my parents got divorced and my living conditions plummeted. My most recent sickness has been a case of bronchitis. So during our midwinter break I spent it laying on the couch and playing (very badly) modern warfare 2.
Throughout my many days of being sick I’ve learned a lot about drugs. First of all acetaminophen is a very evil drug. The US government has decided that to protect the people, they would mandate that all opiates (drugs made from the opium plant) have acetaminophen in them. Acetaminophen causes 56,000 emergency room visits and 450 deaths per year. The belief is that this would deter people from taking these drugs for recreational purposes but even at the "recommended dose" acetaminophen can still cause liver failure.
Another thing that bothers me about the medical industry is that they only have the basic warnings on pill bottles. "Don’t take with alcohol" or "do not drive or operate machinery". While these are good warnings, they leave out what happens when taking combinations of drugs, such as when you have bronchitis but are still going to school. My experience right now is that Sudafed and caffeine cause a reaction that numbs the body and messes up the brain. Although my nose has stopped running and im actually awake and alert, my body is numb and I cant stop sweating.
Another weird drug affect are MAO inhibiters. These drugs include a very large variety ranging from anti-depressants to painkillers. During my father’s last run of cellulites, he was prescribed vicoden for the fact that his leg was the size of a watermelon. When you eat chocolate, peanut butter, take aspirin, ibuprofen or acetaminophen, you pass out fairly fast and this can lead to heart failure or other complications. Now I do not want pill bottles to contain every known reaction that can exist with these drugs, but the really common ones should be covered, like CHOCOLATE, PEANUT BUTTER, or TYLENOL.
A lot of these effects go completely unnoticed, like when you mix acetaminophen with hydrocodone, prescription vicoden, you get a much stronger painkiller, but then again that’s the point as this becomes prescription vicoden.
I geuss the true problem is our adiction to medication. throughout my childhood the responce for any problem was "go take ____". Now im unsure if the rest of our nation is like this but i learned to dry swallow pills at age 6. where in a more natural world, its "i have a headache, im gonna go run into a tree untill i get knocked out". though i think that medication probably saves alot more lives than it ends so im fine with our increasing addiction to pills.
So the next time you get sick, check all the drugs you take because a lot of these weird effects can be really unpleasant.
For more infromation on all these things, use google or wikipedia, as i have covered a very wide range of topics. For you Mr. Feilder my offical hyperlink is to this funny blog
