This week’s Sunday Inspiration is brought to you by “Last Week Tonight with Jon Oliver”. Watch and if it doesn’t piss you off, maybe you should “ask your doctor”.
I watched this the other night at my best friend’s and we were all pissed when it was over, for different reasons. But, mainly because of the truth in it. I think what pissed me off the most is the idea that our doctors are asking for medical advice from pharmaceutical reps. Doc, You do realize that these reps are just sales people who have learned their sales material well.
I hadn’t really thought to post about this until I read a post on Fightin the Fibro about the “trial and error” method doctors use to treat our ailments. And, they really do us a trial and error method, because they really don’t know what will work. The combination of the two got me thinking about who is making our health decisions. A couple of the problems are the lack of knowledge about our ailments, and the lack of real treatments that have been proven. The truth is the doctors have no idea what will help and all they can do is start with the treatments they know best (which are likely to be the drugs that reps present most often). They throw that drug at us, then they throw another one, until we either get so fed up with the side effects outweighing the symptoms and give up, or we find a medication that works.
This is just one more reason why more and more of us are turning to naturopaths and alternative medicine. Why? Because these providers might be a little less biased about a specific treatment. I won’t say they aren’t getting paid to provide a treatment, they are. And, in many cases you can tell pretty easily which treatments they are getting paid well to provide. Who is paying them? You are / We are. We are paying them because they have convinced us that this treatment works, and for some of us it may. So, we moved from a drug rep providing a doctor with their opinion of what works, to a doctor selling the treatment they can make the money on. I guess that’s not much of a change at all.
The more I write the more I’m making a connection. It doesn’t matter what treatment a provider offers, they are making money or they wouldn’t be providing it. Nothing is free – nor should it be. But, this does underscore one important thing. It’s up to us to research our own treatments and to pay attention to our bodies, and make the best decisions we can without relying on someone else to make those decisions for us.
Patients must make the effort to be informed and not rely on Big Pharma to make their medical decisions. Share on X
Sue says
Well, that pissed me off, too. I took Effexor when it first came on the market. One day I woke up and I felt so weird, like I was floating above the bed and shaky. I went to the ER and my blood pressure was so high I was close to having a stroke. They said it was an anxiety attack. I decided to get online and check out the new prescriptions I was taking and sure enough….effexor had a suit against them for not disclosing that it could raise some peoples blood pressure. My doctor didn’t even know until I told her about it.
Julie says
So many times this type of things happens. It happened to me, too! Not with Effexor but with other meds, landing me in the ER with insane BP.
Flamingo Fan says
Amen. I am constantly searching for myself to find what works best for me. I mentioned to my nurse practitioner that I had found some help in taking magnesium and vitamin D. This was quickly pushed aside and back to the prescribed meds I was taking. I have been unable to tolerate Lyrica but the NP continually pushes me to take it.
Julie says
I hate that so many docs won’t think beyond whatever med they’ve been told to prescribe. Honestly, I think any doctor that won’t take a full view approach to Fibro isn’t worth seeing, as they obviously aren’t doing their research.