READ THE LABEL
I find it to be amazing how many people take medications without having read the label to become aware of what is in the medicine.
“Amazing” may not be the proper word. “Shocking” would, perhaps, be more fitting. People who would not think of doing other things which might harm them, make a regular routine of putting their lives in danger by failing to read directions.
It happens more often that we realize,too. Prescribed drugs do not, as a rule, have much label text other than who is to take what how often -an some restrictions, if needed. Over-the-counter drugs, however, do have detailed information as to the nature of the contents an d what is to be done with them. Some are printed in ways which seem designed to prevent reading, but all can be important to the well-being of the patient.
The human body,innately aware of improper conditions through being equipped with a marvelous immune system, gives fair warning by means of symptoms for all sorts of adverse conditions. Some people never learn to “read” such alerts and they are, very often,the same people who can't, or don't, read on instructions concerning the proper use of the drug. One of the greatest advances of our computerized era has been the tendency of medical doctors to “write” their prescriptions by keyboard now instead and scrawls by which they used to communicate, in some mysterious way, instructions for the preparation and packaging thereof by the all-seeing,all-knowing pharmacists. That, alone, must have saved quite a few lives along the way.
Another factor which enters into he habit of people not reading the rules in the health “game” is the amount and nature of the folklore to which they are re committed. To what degree a person puts faith in folk medicine lore, old-wives tales, traditions, family habits, witchcraft and faith healing ... they will modify the original instructions to suit their “other” knowledge. One very common example of such mismanagement of medicine is to be found in the number of people who think that if one pill is effective two might be more so. Overdosing is more common than under-estimating the amount of drugs to be taken. Many people who have been to the doctor's office decide on their way home how they are going to modify the schedule for taking the pills they have just acquired.
Another hazard we all face today is that far too many people pay more attention to TV commercials about drugs than anything their doctor may have said.
He tells them only once but TV tells them several times and hour both day and night. Which one do you think the most people will choose to believe? In one way it works out better for the doctor, because the patient comes back again and again with the same or other maladies.
A.L.M. October 16, 2004 [c487wds]
