Minimizing the use of Medicines

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Minimizing the use of Medicines

 

 

ON REDUCING THE AMOUNT OF DRUGS AND MEDICINES IN YOUR

LIFE

 

" The best doctor gives the least medicines. " -

Benjamin Franklin

 

Another way to put that is, " The best patient NEEDS

the least medicines. " Anything that you can do to be

healthier is likely to reduce the number and amount of

drugs that your doctor would need to prescribe for

you. A good doctor is certainly willing to see that

you are taking as little medicine as possible.

 

One reason to take only minimum doses is that all

drugs carry a risk. You could say that vitamins carry

a risk, too. You could say that EVERYTHING in life

carries some risk. You could, but that would obscure

the real point that drugs carry a higher than average

risk, and they are regularly used by a very large

number of people.

 

Vitamin supplements have an especially high margin for

error; drugs do not. Let's take the most dangerous of

vitamins and one of the safest of all drugs for

comparison. The vitamin is Vitamin D and the drug is

aspirin.

 

The U.S. Recommend Daily Allowance for vitamin D is

400 International Units (I.U.) per day. It has

frequently been said that vitamin D can be toxic at

relatively low levels. Certainly doses of over two

thousand I.U. per day are hard to justify. It is

instructive to note, however, that as far back as 1939

some really enormous doses of vitamin D were found to

be remarkably non-toxic. In several countries,

infants including preemies were safely given from

200,000 I.U. to over HALF A MILLION units of vitamin D

in a single injected or oral dose. This is hard to

believe; the references are on pages 544 and 584-591

in the medical textbook The Vitamins in Medicine,

third edition, by Bicknell and Prescott (1953). This

is quite a comprehensive work. There are a total of

344 scientific papers on Vitamin D cited in one

chapter.

 

Aspirin is a drug generally regarded as safe enough to

not require a prescription. It is also one of the

leading causes of death from poisoning each year. A

normal recommended dose of aspirin would be two

5-grain tablets every four hours. An arthritis

sufferer might be told by the doctor to take more than

twice this amount. Probably one hundred aspirin taken

at once would be fatal.

Let's do some math.

 

100 aspirin divided by two is 50. The toxic dose for

aspirin is therefore about 50 times the normal

recommended dose on the bottle.

 

500,000 I.U. of vitamin D divided by the U.S. RDA of

400 I.U. gives us 1250. This means that BABIES have

taken 1,250 times the U.S. RDA in a single dose and

have lived! That is indeed a high safety margin.

 

How much safer is vitamin D than aspirin? Well, if

you take 1,250 and divide it by 50, you get 25.

Therefore the most dangerous of vitamins is

TWENTY-FIVE TIMES SAFER than the safest of drugs.

This means that all the other vitamins are safer

still. It also means that almost all medicines,

particularly prescription drugs, are still worse.

 

The biggest reason prescription drugs require that

prescription is because they ARE dangerous. That is

the whole point. Doctors and pharmacists try to

carefully figure just how much of the medicine you can

take without UNUSUAL danger. The information that

they have to go on is generally provided for them by

the drug manufacturer. You might find this

information in a leaflet included inside the box with

your prescription. You will also find this

information in a reference book called the Physicians'

Desk Reference (PDR). The PDR is basically a

two-thousand-page " Who's who " of every drug there is.

You may ask the pharmacist at any drug store for a

look through this book. If he or she says " no, " then

it's time to do business with a different pharmacy.

 

Inside of the PDR you will find drugs classified under

type, generic name and brand name. It is easy to look

up any drug that you or a family member take. Be

ready for some unpleasant reading. Most drugs have

many more precautions than uses, that is, more dangers

than benefits.

 

Why are drugs still used, then? Several hundred years

of medical tradition is one reason. Physician

unfamiliarity with therapeutic nutrition is another.

Money, big multi-billion dollar drug company money, is

another. Pick your reason, and consider another:

patients accept drug therapy. They accept the risks

and the side effects. Patients practically demand a

wonder drug. " Cure me, Doc " puts the physician on the

spot. She has to do SOMETHING, and since her

background is in drugs and surgery, that's what she

selects from. That may not be ideal.

 

What can you do, then?

 

1. Ask the doctor to fully explain the risks and side

effects that you read about in the PDR. Now ask for

justification as to why you should let your body take

those risks. If you do not get a full and straight

answer, or if the doctor is " too busy " to discuss this

with you, then it is time for a new doctor.

 

2. Ask for the absolute minimum possible dose.

 

3. Get back to the doctor right away if there are any

negative effects of the medication.

 

4. ASK FOR AN ALTERNATIVE INSTEAD OF A DRUG! Some

doctors are happy to work with interested patients who

want to avoid medicines when they can. If your doctor

is not interested, then you can find a doctor who is.

 

If you are already taking a medication:

 

1. I really do NOT think that it is a good idea to

just suddenly " stop " medication. This is especially

true if you are taking something more than a

pain-reliever or other non-essential drugs.

 

2. Inform the doctor that you are interested in

getting off the medicine that you are on. If that is

not realistic, then you can tell the doctor that you

would like to gradually decrease the amount that you

have to take.

 

3. It is best to work with the physician who made the

prescription for you in the first place. After all,

the doctor that put you on the medicine should be the

one involved with taking you off of it. The doctor

should give you a schedule to follow that gradually

reduces your drug dose.

 

4. If the doctor wants to see you for monitoring your

progress, then do it. That's only fair, plus it

provides you with documented evidence that you are

succeeding without the medicine.

 

5. If your doctor believes that you cannot reduce the

level of your medication at all, you can honor that

viewpoint without agreeing with it. A second medical

opinion might be in order next. If you find a whole

string of doctors, all saying " Don't you dare stop

taking your so-and-so, " then you need to stop and do

some serious reconsideration.

 

At this point, you may feel like the person in a

French restaurant who keeps asking every waiter for

chow mein. You are just not going to get what you

want there. There may be a good reason for it. Or, it

may simply be a matter of taste.

 

Some people will then begin on their own to reduce or

eliminate their medicines. No doctor is so naive as

to think that this doesn't happen every day. It is an

individual's right, and an individual's risk, to do

so. I cannot recommend it.

 

Drugs, and for that matter surgery as well, are

options that do exist. They are widely regarded as

severe measures, though, and may not be necessary for

your well being. If proper nutrition and living bring

you good health, there is no NEED for medication.

 

A prescription too often represents a guess. Voltaire

once said that " Doctors are men who give drugs of

which they know little, into bodies of which they know

less... for diseases of which they know nothing at

all. " We can allow that medical knowledge has

advanced a good deal since the 18th century. However,

we cannot not allow that drugs are safe. They never

have been safe, and they are not safe now. Medicine is

LESS imprecise than in Voltaire's time, but it is

still imprecise. Refer back to the Physician's Desk

Reference again for proof of this.

 

Therapeutic nutrition is a serious option, and a safer

one, too.

 

Ask for it.

 

 

Copyright C 1999 and prior years Andrew W. Saul.

From the books QUACK DOCTOR and PAPERBACK CLINIC,

available from Dr. Andrew Saul, Number 8 Van Buren

Street, Holley, New York 14470.