 |
|
| Category: Medical & Health Care |
Date published: January 10, 2005 |
The recent Vioxx® recall underscores the importance of carefully considering your health conditions and potential side effects before taking any medication. Appreciate how intricate your body is, and how powerful drugs can be, to safely manage your health while minding your cost. "Cost" applies not only to the money you pay for these drugs, but also to the toll they take on your system in terms of side effects: heart attacks, stomach ulcers, kidney failure, addiction, and other problems are worth avoiding!
You may think a given drug is a miraculous godsend. Yet, someone you know may get little relief and experience unpleasant side effects when she takes the same dose. Your age, body weight and other health conditions could make you more or less susceptible to medication side effects. All of the choices can be confusing.
Your healthy body operates by constantly balancing thousands of biochemical reactions. Your heart beat, senses, movement, healing, digestion, even your thoughts occur because of elaborate and intertwined series' of events. Diseases and their symptoms are the result of an overload, shortage or misfiring in one or more of these pathways. For example, rheumatoid arthritis occurs when chaotic inflammation attacks the body's own tissues. Diabetes occurs because the pancreas is unable to produce insulin, or the body is unable to use that insulin.
Medicine corrects the symptoms of disease by mimicking your body's own chemicals, and then tricking your system into behaving as it should. Individual drugs work by blocking or enhancing a specific biochemical reaction. There are so many drugs because there are so many diseases caused by so many disordered chemical reactions!
Most medicines are taken as pills that must be digested, absorbed by your intestine, processed by your liver, and then circulated via the bloodstream throughout your whole system. As your system digests and processes the pill, the ingredients in that pill are transformed into the substance designed to solve the problem. This substance floats around your bloodstream until it finds the problem.
How do the substance and the problem recognize each other? Think of a key in a lock. The key represents the drug and the lock symbolizes one step in the chemical reaction. The key fits the lock, unlocks the door, and reopens the pathway. Or, this key could lock the door and prevent anyone else from getting through. Matching the right substance to enhance or block the chemical reaction will treat the disease.
Most medicines will not cure disease. They temporarily correct a process and relieve symptoms until it's time for the next dose. How often you need to take your pill is based on how long its active ingredient remains effective in your system. Some only need to be taken once a day, because they are active for many hours. Others only last for a few hours and need to be taken several times a day.
You'll notice that any drug's dosing schedule is designed to fit our 24 hour clock. Since 24 is not divisible by 5, we say, "4-6." That way, you can spread a day's maximum dose over the course of 24 hours. Why the range? It depends on the chemical makeup of the pill, and individual patients' metabolism. Some drugs, especially those for heart problems, must be taken regularly and consistently. Other drugs, for less critical health issues, can be taken "as needed." Make sure you understand what pills you take and why, and HOW and WHEN you need to take them.
"Wellness" is the balance among thousands of highly structured networks of chemical reactions in your body. It's not as simple as one lock and key: think of an intricate 3-D jigsaw puzzle! Changing one reaction with medication can affect several others, often unintentionally and undesirably. These are side effects.
For example, the NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), like ibuprofen, relieve arthritis pain by blocking the biochemical reaction that causes inflammation. However, the sequence of events that ends as inflammation also includes some reactions responsible for keeping your body healthy. There are steps that eventually maintain kidney function and blood pressure, preserve the stomach's lining and regulate blood clotting. This is the reason you might have an upset stomach or high blood pressure after taking ibuprofen.
When treating your arthritis with NSAIDs, our challenge is to block the pathways that cause inflammation, but not the ones responsible for normal housekeeping. Remember our "lock and key" metaphor that explains how medicines work. The individual drugs within this class differ slightly in their chemical structure, or the shape of their "key." They are effective medicines because they concentrate on the "lock" that leads to inflammation, and are less apt to affect the others.
There are usually several drugs available that work in similar ways; why can't there be only one? Well, what works in the test tube does not transfer neatly to the body! All NSAIDs are supposed to block inflammation (and they do, when studied across thousands of patients!) However, some might work better for your pain than others. Likewise, NSAIDs aren't supposed to cause side effects that render them unbearable (and they generally don't, or they wouldn't have hit the market!) But, you may have experienced intolerable side effects from some NSAIDs, less so from others.
Some drugs mimic other drugs at certain points in their digestion, processing, and transportation through your bloodstream. This works according to a similar lock and key system we discussed above: their "keys" fit the same lock. Two or more drugs might cancel each other out, or amplify each other's effects. These drug interactions can be very dangerous. All the more reason to understand what medications you take, and why!
Your pharmacist is a valuable consultant who can advise you about getting the greatest benefit from your medicines. You spend a lot of money trying to feel better--don't waste it! Appreciate how interrelated all of your organs and systems are. Do everything you can to sustain your body's vigor and balance in order to ward off anything that threatens it with disease (or side effects)!
Want to learn more? Visit www.knowyourbones.com "Making Sense of Arthritis Medicine: Manage Your Symptoms Safely" and discover relief that's right for you!
Disclaimer: The Views and Information expressed on this webpage are that of the Author and do not necessarily reflect the views, data, policies, endorsement or support of HolisticJunction.com's Administration or its standards. All work by author is copyright protected unless otherwise stated. If you would like to use this article, please insure that all reprints and distributions INCLUDE the Copyright and Author Resource Box; and that ALL Hyperlinks REMAIN intact and active.
|
|
|
|
Articles
