I didn’t write this to a prompt – it just arrived more or less fully formed out of my anger. I will link it to Open Link Night at dVerse poets’ pub.
This is Not a Poem
It is a mudslinging moan
about suffering
unnecessarily for months .
Why don’t doctors pay more attention
to the mixture of drugs they prescribe?
Why don’t pharmacists red flag side effects
and warn folk starting something new?
I posted yesterday of my joy
at finding the reason for the constant coughing
that has brought me low in spirit and body.
Today I went Googling and found zillions
of folk who’ve suffered like me
from just one of the medicines I take.
As a side effect of therapeutic Googling,
I found an explanation for my loss of balance
since taking Ramipril.
It could have caused me to fall -
imagine what bones I might have broken.
Laxity of regulatory authorities,
FDA, NICE, MHRA and the like?
Profiteering by drug companies?
Carelessness of doctors?
Blind spots of pharmacists?
All these lead to suffering and danger
to vulnerable folk already sick
or they wouldn’t be taking medication.
What’s to be done?
Should we march on London, Paris, Washington?
Sorry, I don’t have the stamina.
But I do have a brain and a pen.
And that reminds me,
It was only last November
that different doctors, different drugs
caused a crisis for my man.*
Aux armes, cityoen(ne)s!
hope you reach a comfortable solution. =)
wow. weird you should say this since my mother just ended up in the hospital this week after passing out because two meds she took together could potentially cause a seizure, so the docs at the hospital said to stop, but why we she on them in the first place. i could look up online that they were dangerous, together and i’m not a doctor
Initiated Kiss
The problem with doctors, is that they are just like bakers, mechanics, engineers, cooks, cops and a lot of other folks. Consumer beware!
In the old days they were trusted like priests — and that is when their medicines didn’t work. Go figure.
So glad the cause of your cough was solved — you are right, ACE inhibitor coughs are a dime-a-dozen.
cause found, but cough still with me, despite changing drugs.
Looks like the healers really do have to heal themselves first…
There’s a reason I don’t go to doctors unless I’m desperate – you just wrote about it.
Sure hope it all gets sorted out soon!
It’s when you’re desperate (ie a heart attack) that you have to trust them
Medicines scares me so. I could really feel the roar of your anger and heat of frustration. I can identify by transplotting myself into a future scenario of fears I have of what you describe. Taking medicines in combination is llike my fear of flying, I have to trust in people I do not know. I am sorry for your struggles and hope a proper remedy comes your direction with a quickness.
Thank you, Henry. So do I!
Wow, I am glad they sorted it out and found out the reason for your problem. You have every right to rant, Viv, and perhaps your poem will open some other people’s eyes as well!
ugh. i am sorry you went through that…the short answer in many cases is money…there is money to be made and sometimes it seems the side effects are far worse than the cure you know….
That’s interesting. I’ve been on Ramipril since a sub-arachnoid haemorrhage 10 months ago. It was the practice nurse at the surgery who asked me about a tickly cough, which I only get occasionally, thankfully. Sorry you’ve not had such a good experience. Maybe the NHS isn’t as broken as we like to think – at least here in Scotland.
At least I got an appointment to see a consultant cardiologist within two days, which I don’t think would happen in the NHS. French doctors really are gung ho with their prescriptions. Having said that, the health care in France is wonderful from 10 minute ambulance response to us out in the country to tests with same day results and access to consultants and surgeons.
I am glad they have a great health system. It seems surreal to me that some places do not put it as a high priority.
I agree. Doctors keep prescribing and prescribing, but sometimes it does more harm than good!
gosh !
This is so sad Viv !!
Hope you are better now ..
Still coughing – Doc told me three to four days after stopping the bad medicine, and it’s 3 full days now with no sign of lessening. I’ve just translated this poem into French and sent it to my cardiologist.
well done !
Aux armes! In my nursing career I have seen so many “therapeutic-induced” problems. So glad you took the initiative. It’s more and more imperative that we take responsibility for our own healthcare.
Double check before we blindly trust…
I had some ‘delightful’ dealings with the medical profession. I finally figured out that my one son was lactose intolerant only after several unnecessary tests. This the medical profession doesn’t have a test for. We never did go back to the one doc who told us some of his tummy troubles was due to constipation (A specialist over an hour away). Sometimes I thin the docs are full of…well you know…
Sometimes the sided effects of a drug are worse than the cause. Nice parody.
Here in the States, the commercials touting the need for various medications have become a running joke because they are required to list the side effects during the commercial. So you hear the spokesperson say certain people may experience vomiting, loss of balance, cancer, anal leakage, skin rashes, tuberculosis. I am not exaggerating. Comedians have incorporated the commercials into their acts. Big Pharmaceutical equals Big Money, unfortunately for us.
I’m glad they don’t do that here. The problem is that I read the notice with the first batch of meds and there are pages of tiny print. By the time the side effects manifest themselves, you’ve forgotten where you read it.
Right on. Big Pharma greases palms in Washington, so the FCC doesn’t ban commercials. I’m a mental health patient and my hub and I sit and laugh ourselves silly about meds for “social anxiety” that include side effects such as inability to achieve an erection (but there’s another med for that), and the best one – craving for GAMBLING. If we didn’t laugh about it, we’d start crying. So you can get out of the house to socialize, but first you have to stop at a casino. And if you a guy and get lucky, you can’ get it up if you score., What’s the point of leaving home?
We are activists for Universal Health Care and for a ban on drug commercials on TV and radio, etc. Peace, Amy
Sorry you had to go through all that, Viv, but glad you found the answer.
Great moan! Wish there was no need for it.
It must be difficult to know what is best to do but the reality is that all drugs have side-effects and doctors these days have lost the art of diagnosis and instead are pharmacists dispensing drugs and secretaries, reading test results. In addition, there are so many drugs, pushed so hard by drug companies that most patients are no more than lab rats.
Don’t take any drug without researching it first and demanding your doctor monitor what it does and believes you when you tell him or her and exhaust all non-drug options first – homeopathy, Traditional Chinese Medicine including acupuncture, herbal medicine – the latter Traditional Medicines being much more common in Europe than the UK so you should have a chance in France.
But first and foremost change doctors and find one who does not believe the body is a machine or a bag of chemicals but a complex self-regulating organism where dis-ease comes from physiological, psychological, emotional and spiritual sources – and not in that order.
Best of all good luck but do whatever you can to get the drugs down to an absolute minimum. Drugs never cure – they simply work to ‘remove symptoms’ creating new ones as they do which is why you end up on a drug for the side effects of the first drug and another for the side effects of the second and a third….. and so it goes.
And I always read every word of the minuscule type on the slips that come with the medicines. This particular one mentioned cough as occurring in less than 1%. That’s not what I’ve discovered in my research today.
Since my first infarct I have taken a cocktail of stuff, mostly without problem, or with only transitory problems (eg Cordarone and allergy to sunlight). After my last heart attack, before Christmas, my cardiologist changed a lot of them, and that’s when the trouble started.
The stats you’ll find in the meds literature will probably differ from anecdotal evidence you’ll find on line. Don’t forget that on line you’ll find much more from those who have had problems than those who are happy with their meds leading to bias! And, on the other side it’s possibly to do with under reporting of side effects by docs.
I suspect your overall wellness is different from when you had your original infarct, so maybe you are not completely comparing like with like. However it is probably worth going back to your GP with the specific aim of a meds review, rather than going in with a symptom to be resolved.
The GP does what the cardiologist tells him to do. I may need to see my friend Popeye again.
?
Cardiologist is a friend. His nickname is Popeye – I don’t know why!
Viv, I can sympathize. Riley was on a drug that made her stick her tongue out involuntarily, and she didn’t realize it. Also, anyone who takes ANY sleep meds (Lunesta, et al) runs the risk of sleep walking, sleep DRIVING, sleep cooking (and consuming it all without realizing it). Drugs are more dangerous, and they are on the market and given free samples to doctors. My advice: The newer the drug, the better chance it has bad side effects. Hope Jock is OK. Also, Popeye may be a big spinach eater? Love, Amy