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a medicine rant

My Granny Rea hated medicine. As in, it better work on the third dose or it wasn't worth a thing. And it would get flushed. Two weeks of antibiotics? Nuh-huh, no way.

And my mother is her daughter. She doesn't flush her meds, thankfully. She just "adjusts" them, as in the dosage or whether or not to take them at all. But she doesn't dispose of them, so it's not as bad.

My aunt, her other daughter, is similar. My cousin and I laugh when we share stories about our Moms and say "See what we have to look forward to" because we know it could very well one day be us.

Or not. I like to think I take after my dad, who worked in a pharmacy before becoming a preacher, in this regard.

Medicines, like herbs and spices, have multiple purposes. For example, we use cinnamon in pies, cookies, and some drinks. To the Chinese, it is for medicinal purposes only. When my Chinese students tasted a good ol' homemade apple pie, they would wrinkle their noses and say, "This tatses like medicine." Recently I saw an article that was listing all the ailments cinnamon was good for. Does this mean we stop cooking with it because it has medicinal value? Of course not!

And yet, how many times do people read an insert or pamphlet, discover that their medicine is often used for something else, so therefore quit taking it? The are many anti-depressants on the market that work by easing the sensitivity of the nerve endings (what old women used to call their "nerve pills"). Due to so many anti-inflammatory drugs (used to treat arthritis) causing heart damage, more doctors are turning to nerve pills or anti-depressants to alleviate stress on the nervous system. I'm continuously amazed at the number of people who go to a doctor with nerve pain and then complain because they read up on their meds and find the words "anti-depressant".  They ignore all the many other illnesses this medicine can be used for and think the doctor is not listening to them, when in fact he's given them the very thing they wanted: something to ease their pain. It just absolutely flabbergasts me. Why pay someone who is trained in a field to help you with something you don't understand, and then totally ignore their advice and remedy?

They probably do it for the same reason I know I shouldn't have a soft drink, but occasionally buy that Dr. Pepper anyway.

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