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Prescribed generic 600mg ibuprofen is cheaper for me than 3 OTC 200mg tablets. Lots of people get prescription NSAIDs due to stomach issues with OTC choices also. I know a few people who have no other "regular" prescription other than NSAIDs.
Yes. I remember when my mom realized her prescribed meds for constant heartburn were cheaper than the OTC version.
Be careful with the NSAIDS. After many years of taking them, my regular blood tests showed my renal function was starting to deteriorate. So I can't take them anymore. Now I take Tylenol which isn't half as good, and of course, that one is hard on the liver. You do have to keep up with the blood tests when you are on maintenance meds.
okay - I am supposed to be on thyroid meds, but have let them slip. I did blood work this week so I can get back on them. Those would be about all I would want to take.
At one time they were telling me that I had high blood pressure. I told them it was because I would get irritated on the 40 some mile drive to the VA clinic - lol. It wasn't even ultra high. So I found a local doctor and the short drive is much better. I don't get as irritated.
I'm 64 and I don't take any medications. Of course, I don't go to the doctor, either! I'm sure a doc would find something to prescribe to me!
For a while, I had high blood pressure (didn't take anything for it), but after I left my job, it went back to normal.
My father is 82 and has never taken any prescription meds in his life. My mother takes 2, blood pressure and thyroid.
I have an older friend that takes 12-14 pills a day. She hits the "donut hole" and it's a major scramble to get her meds through that period. I really wonder how many of her pills are even needed.
I'm with you Fox Terrier -- I would not go to the doctor unless there is some body part about to fall off. I hope I inherited all my father's genes.
Years ago when I was a late 20something (e.g. 90s), there was this little pill and I'm not talking about the little blue pill or the little purple pill. I'm talking Prozac. From there, a plethora of other psych drugs. At first I was a bit naive about this. Later I came to realize many of my cohort were taking something.
Read this internet headline yesterday or the day before but didn't go deep into the article. I may get back to it.
What an alarming statistic. When you stratify the adult age brackets, my guess it is higher for "older" retired people like those who frequent here.
Comments?
I had an ex-wife who worked for Forest Pharmaceuticals. I remember reading the company's annual report. It had an article that started out asking:
Did you know that 37% of Americans have never used any prescription drugs?
Did you know that only 41% of Americans have ever used a prescription drug in their lifetime?
Did you know that only 17% of Americans currently use prescription drugs on a daily basis?
So I'm thinking these are really bizarre questions to be asking, but then in reading the article, it became clear that their goal is to get every man, woman and child in the US using 1-3 prescription drugs every single day of their lives.
Maybe the US needs to adopt some of the strategies that Germany and other Euro-States use for prescription drugs:
In order not to trigger penalty payments, the KBV devised an Emergency Programme which would, in effect, ration drug prescribing for the rest of the year.
The Emergency Programme proposed five steps:
1. Waiting lists for prescription drugs and other prescription treatments (Heilmittel, which include physiotherapy, acupuncture etc.) except in life threatening or medically essential circumstances
2. Postponement of innovative therapy to the following budget year
3. Radical switching of prescriptions from brand to the cheapest generic
4. Prior authorisation of expensive therapies
5. In the event of budget being exceeded, ‘emergency prescriptions’ to be issued temporarily, for which patients would have to pay out-of pocket and personally claim reimbursement (in Germany, unlike France, patients pay only user charges out of pocket)
Source: Why Ration Healthcare? Page 86
I think waiting lists for prescription drugs, plus forced generics and prior authorization would go a long way to curbing abuses and stretching healthcare dollars.
Read this internet headline yesterday or the day before but didn't go deep into the article. I may get back to it.
What an alarming statistic. When you stratify the adult age brackets, my guess it is higher for "older" retired people like those who frequent here.
Comments?
Yes, I believe that. One of my friends takes 11 prescription medicines. There is no doctor on earth who can predict what the adverse effects of that "cocktail" may be. I am 65 and my wife is 61; when we indicate on medical forms that we take no prescription medications whatsoever, the doctors and nurses are bewildered. It's un-American. We are not doing our part to support the health care industry. My wife won't even take over-the-counter medications because this is the mindset she brought from Russia; she has just about converted me, although I will take the occasional Aleve. My best friend's cholesterol was a bit high and the doctor said "We can try diet and exercise first, or I can just start you on the medication." His response: Just start me on the medication. It's insane, but it's the American Way.
More than a third of Americans suffer from a cluster of health problems -- collectively classified as “metabolic syndrome” -- that put them at an elevated risk of heart diseases, hypertension and diabetes, among a plethora of other diseases. According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Tuesday, the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in the U.S. increased to nearly 35 percent in 2011-2012 from an earlier 33 percent in 2003-2004.
I also expect that the percentage of people on prescription drugs is higher for older people than young people
Quote:
About 47 percent of people over the age of 60 were found to have metabolic syndrome, compared with 18 percent for people between the ages 20 and 39.
I have been taking simvastatin for the last 6-7 years. I stopped taking it for 1 year hoping to lower my blood sugar but resuming taking the medication after seeing that both my cholesterol and blood sugar levels kept going up. I keep my blood sugar in check with diet and exercise and rely on simvastatin to control my cholesterol level (which did not respond to any kind of diet change).
Yes. I remember when my mom realized her prescribed meds for constant heartburn were cheaper than the OTC version.
Be careful with the NSAIDS. After many years of taking them, my regular blood tests showed my renal function was starting to deteriorate. So I can't take them anymore. Now I take Tylenol which isn't half as good, and of course, that one is hard on the liver. You do have to keep up with the blood tests when you are on maintenance meds.
A friend of mine who is still in his mid fifties has long had joint problems. They had him on ever increasing doses of Nsaids. When they did a physical they found severely reduced liver function from them. He's still looking for something to deal with the joint pain, but they check the liver function on a regular schedule.
He said to watch them. In all the time he took them on doctor's orders he said he was never warned to take care and moderate usage.
What I do is look up medications before ever taking them, specifically side effects and damage from continued useage. I've said no to a few. In todays mantra of the magic pill, and big pharma pushing them everywhere, we HAVE to become proactive. If some pill will treat one condition and cause others I'm sensitive to, what it the gain? Any doctor who claims my concerns are not of importance had just said I can't believe they actually care about me as a whole.
Perhaps if we tossed in "medicinal marijuana" into the calculation, we might be at 90 percent. Exclude Viagra and Cialis and the number might go down to 40 percent. This is all just guess work.
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