Musings About Medications.

New Zealand Art.


With time to think about my situation and how and why I got MS it has also got me thinking about the medical profession and the pharmaceutical companies.
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Why is it that the standard response currently is to medicate everyone, this seems to be the primary method of treating all problems.

Rather alarming to read about this trend and to see programs about this on the TV and hear on the radio.

Alarming how many people are placed on long term medication, medicines like Prozac are good as a temporary breakthrough drugs but surely not for long term use.

Could be that it is now used as much as or even more than Valium was, as the current new wonder drug.

Well remember my poor mother being prescribed Valium in the sixties and left on it for far too long which caused her many problems and took her ages to get over the withdrawal symptoms.

But despite this I sometimes wish that I did not have Primary Progressive MS, but a different type, so there were drugs for me too.

This disease has such a devasting impact that I often wish for a miracle cure as I am sure many have hoped for the same.

Thinking about the lure of miracles got me thinking of the medicines that are prescribed for MS and whether they really are effective.

Have been thinking about how some people seem to be helped by the various medications such as Tsyabri and Copoxane.

Others again seem not to be helped at all and might even be getting worse because of these medications.

What if some of the people that respond well to these treatments are really in remission, as no one knows what is actually going on, this is hard to monitor.

The medical profession has at this moment little to no real idea what MS is in its entirety and what causes it.

Which is why I find it odd that they have no hesitation to recommend a variety of drugs, that in fact they do not and can not know what effect they will have, this sounds almost like gambling to me.

As the medical world deals with the human body in bits, each doctor specialising in one area, this means they always treat the symptoms and not the whole person.

One of the standard treatments that they know works are steroids which get used for everything, seems to me that this could be also be causing a problem.

Steroids’ surely should not be used as a standard blanket response for all symptoms, while they are very good for stimulating recovery they can I think also cause damage with prolonged use.

Think that prolonged use also diminishes the effectiveness and the time span between treatments becomes shorter and the treatment perhaps less effective over time.

Wonder if this is all part of our quick fix approach to problems, maybe it would be better to take a holistic approach and treat each person individually and totally.

Perhaps we can not always fix things but we can perhaps work towards a system of treatment that bases treatment and care on a person’s entire situation and needs.

A holistic approach would be better I think as it would provide I feel a good basis to develop a dynamic systems thinking about disease and treatments.

I am not against people using medications if they work for them, in fact I am very happy if they do give you relief and I am not recommending you should suddenly stop.