The idea of treating an illness or disease with medicines dates back thousands of years. Materials taken from nature have helped humans to feel better for generations. I remember being told by my grandmother to drink cranberry juice to help my urinary tract infection. I trusted her advice, because her practice of breaking off part of an aloe plant to rub its healing substance on my minor burns worked every time.
Thankfully, during the last two hundred years, scientists have developed drugs to treat a host of maladies. If you think about it, antibiotics alone have not only relieved pain and suffering, these drugs have saved countless lives.
Why, then, do many people resist or even fear medication?
I have a perfect example: my mother. A strong woman, my mom is battling cancer for the fourth time in 15 years; however, although drugs have literally extended her life, she remains leery of even the most basic medicines.
During her latest round of chemo, she became violently ill. After investigating the situation, I found out she hadn’t taken her anti-nausea medication, because she wanted to see if she could “do without it.†The results of not taking her pills as prescribed by her doctor lead to two days of misery. We had a long talk, and she agreed to take the medication the right way next time.
People suffering from mental illness also resist the idea of using drugs to improve their quality of life. Although they suffer from debilitating depression, they let preconceived notions that they are “weak†or that they should “buck up†dictate whether they seek help or not. I am sure you know someone or have heard of someone who was doing great on anti-depressants only to stop taking them, because the medicine had worked – they felt fine!
It is true, some types of depression may be only temporary, such as at a time of loss, but if a person has suffered repeated bouts of melancholy, they should seriously consider taking the medicine for the rest of their lives (or as long as the doctor advises).
The media has not helped either. Athletes suffer injuries, and they sometimes become addicted to pain medication. The press focuses on these cases, dissecting them from every angle, so much so that the “normal†American becomes fearful of becoming addicted to pain medication as well. If you think about it, many people have suffered needles pain, because of this unfounded fear. If a patient in pain takes the medication as prescribed, the chances of addiction are minimal.
I also know several men who refuse to use ibuprofen and other over-the-counter pain relief medications. I don’t think they fear taking the medicine itself, they fear being seen as less manly for accepting help. What these men don’t realize, however, is that they need to accept the remedy in order to feel better more quickly.
Some say we live in a pill-popping society. I say medications, when used as prescribed, increase the quality of human life tremendously.
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