{"id":1876,"date":"2020-08-18T12:00:12","date_gmt":"2020-08-18T17:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1876"},"modified":"2020-08-18T12:00:12","modified_gmt":"2020-08-18T17:00:12","slug":"take-a-pill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1876","title":{"rendered":"Take A Pill"},"content":{"rendered":"

One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small
\nAnd the ones that mother gives you, don’t do anything at all<\/em><\/p>\n

White Rabbit<\/strong> by Grace Slick<\/em>, Jefferson Airplane.<\/p>\n

This week I have my yearly visit with my primary care doctor at the Veterans Administration Health Clinic of Central Iowa.\u00a0 Instead of seeing my doctor in person, I will converse with him about my health concerns via telephone.<\/p>\n

This appointment is going to take some time.\u00a0 I rarely watch television, but I try not to miss any Kansas City Royals or Minnesota Twins games.\u00a0 During commercial breaks, I keep getting messages that I \u201cshould ask my doctor if [insert name brand medication here] is right for me.\u201d\u00a0 I have a list.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve seen these commercials, have you noticed that you are never told what the medication is supposed to relieve?\u00a0 You have to use a search engine to find out everything about the drug.\u00a0 That\u2019s the advertisement\u2019s goal, getting you to click on their website.<\/p>\n

Can you even pronounce some of these medications?\u00a0 Will I have to spell out Baqsimi to my doctor to see if it\u2019s right for me.\u00a0 I certainly can\u2019t pronounce it.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to be insensitive to people who may need these medicines, but scanning the possible side effects should be enough to keep anyone from wanting to take a drug that eases one particular ailment.\u00a0 I rarely see one anymore in which death is not one of the possible side effects.\u00a0 And often, the list of side effects includes both constipation and diarrhea.\u00a0 No, thank you.<\/p>\n

It has to be impossible for both diarrhea and constipation to occur at the same time.\u00a0 So, which is it?\u00a0 Has the drug company not researched this pill completely to have the possibility of two adverse conditions as a side effect?\u00a0 This is the point in which the manufacturer blames the patient.\u00a0 \u201cThe medicine affects each individual differently.\u201d\u00a0 Think about that for a minute.\u00a0 If side effects can range wildly from the runs to plugging up, wouldn\u2019t the effect of the medicine be different to each individual user?\u00a0 Okay, I know the answer, and that\u2019s why I\u2019m skeptical about drugs advertised on television.<\/p>\n

I used to think that only old people used pill boxes.\u00a0 Today, I use two pill boxes.\u00a0 The red one is for the pills I take before bed.\u00a0 The blue one contains medication I have to take in the morning.\u00a0 That makes me feel older than old.\u00a0 Twice as old.<\/p>\n

For as many years as possible, I tried to keep from taking pills if I didn\u2019t need them.\u00a0 I rarely took an aspirin or ibuprofen when I had a headache or pain.\u00a0 I still hesitate to use over-the-counter medication, although I do, occasionally and continuously.\u00a0 That\u2019s a confusing statement, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 It\u2019s sort of like throwing in constipation and diarrhea in the same sentence.\u00a0 I take an over-the-counter antihistamine twice a day.\u00a0 However, I rarely use any pain relievers such as aspirin and ibuprofen.<\/p>\n

The pills I take have been prescribed to keep me alive, or at least aid in the everyday functions that seem to have a link to healthy living.\u00a0 That must be the way of life for so many of us who have become senior citizens.<\/p>\n

If you have paid attention to previous blogs of mine, you would understand that I experimented with far too many drugs as a young man.\u00a0 My aversion now is probably some unnecessary fear of getting hooked or overdosing.\u00a0 I can\u2019t explain it, and it probably cost too much to find a shrink that would explain it.<\/p>\n

Or, I could just take another pill.<\/p>\n

Doctor please, some more of these
\nOutside the door, she took four more
\nWhat a drag it is getting old<\/em><\/p>\n

Mother\u2019s Little Helper<\/strong> by Keith Richards \/ Mick Jagger. <\/em>The Rolling Stones<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small And the ones that mother gives you, don’t do anything at all White Rabbit by Grace Slick, Jefferson Airplane. This week I have my yearly visit with my primary … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[786,787,779,785,780,784,783,782,781,778],"class_list":["post-1876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aspirin","tag-baqsimi","tag-grace-slick","tag-ibuprofen","tag-jefferson-airplane","tag-keith-richards","tag-mick-jagger","tag-mothers-little-helper","tag-the-rolling-stones","tag-whit-rabbit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1877,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1876\/revisions\/1877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}