Fear of side effects keeps wife from meds
DEAR DOCTOR: Could you please reassure my wife about “side effects”? She won’t take some of her prescribed medicine because the potential side effects include liver damage, blindness, stroke, heart attack and death. I have tried to explain the legalities of these statements, but only to a deaf ear. (Maybe that’s a side effect too!)
DEAR READER: Many people feel a distrust toward the pharmaceutical industry and its desire for profits, but those same people should acknowledge the science involved in creating medications to temper and eradicate disease. In most cases, their benefits outweigh the risks. The sheer number of medications that are available — for nearly every condition — and the propensity of patients to want them and doctors to prescribe them increase the likelihood that, overall, side effects will occur. You’re right that most of those side effects warned about in commercials (of which there are so very
many) don’t normally occur. And your wife is also right to worry that they could.
Whatever the reason your wife was prescribed medication, help her to focus on the possible consequences of not taking it.
If your wife has a preventable condition and doesn’t want to take drugs, she should concentrate on her physical and emotional well-being. If your wife has a condition that isn’t reversible through lifestyle changes, she should understand that medications can help control her symptoms and the progression of disease — and that the side effects of blindness, stroke, liver damage, heart attack and death are rare with the vast majority of pharmaceuticals.
She should also understand that our country has systems in place to protect patients.