By Dr Nancy Bertelmann
If you have read my Bio, you know that my first Doctorates Degree is in Pharmacy and that I still maintain my Florida Pharmacy License. This Blog concerns the Patient Information Inserts with the fine print that comes with every prescription. I don’t believe that I would be off the mark by saying that few, if anyone ever reads these inserts. However, as a Pharmacist, we read those inserts religiously and completely with the understanding that the manufactures are compelled by law to be truthful with the information. In other words, they are not lying, exaggerating or otherwise misstating the adverse effects of the drug. These adverse effects to some degree or another, will affect you.
Keep in mind that the goal of prescription medications is generally to relieve or moderate a symptom, but that it is done chemically outside of the body’s normal healing mechanism. And, any time that you halt or modify a biological system, every other process down the chain is affected as well. Then too, these foreign chemicals often create other harmful effects as outlined in the Patient Information Inserts.
Somehow, we have come to believe that good health comes in a prescription bottle or that medications are a fact of life as we age. In reality, good health comes from proper nutrition, exercise, rest and moderating stress. There are no “good drugs” or magic pills, but some are worse than others. Some drugs are an absolute necessity such as insulin, but ideally, the goal is to treat your body as least at well as you do your car and you won’t need the handful of medications. I am not saying that drugs are unnecessary, but that every drug that you take carries a price and has some detrimental effect(s) to the body as noted in the inserts.
READ THE PATIENT INFORMATION INSERTS