Open Writing

My medical records, such as they are, probably categorize me as “Drug Averse.” That is, every time a doctor has attempted to prescribe a pill fix for the few complaints I have had, I either refuse or offer some alternative – “I’ll lose weight. I’ll stop eating grease. I’ll exercise more,” etc.

I don’t know what’s at work there, but possibly my attitude is such because I was raised in a self-medicating family, at a time when going to the doctor placed an avoidable strain on a tight household budget. Between my parents and extended family, we had a remedy for most of the common ailments.

This is not to say we had cures, but only that the pills and potions acted either as a counter irritant or were soothing.
Thus we had brew of linseed, liquorish and honey for coughs and colds; camphorated oil for respiratory congestion; the juice of Aloe Vera leaves applied topically for muscle strains; and, unbelievably, a hot, pearl onion in the ear for abscesses. Now that’s a counter irritant that really got your attention. For abrasions and other skin problems we had tincture of iodine, gentian violet and chamomile.

My paternal grandmother had her own catalog of witches’ brews. In my pre-teens she would dispatch me to the local chemist (drug store) if you’re American, with a shopping list that at best I found embarrassing to request, and in a worst case, disbelief that there were such substances.

Paregoric and ipecacuana come to mind, though there were a slew of others, the only one of which I can remember is laudanum (opium). It’s curious to reflect that what my grandmother was asking me to do, and what the chemist was complicit in, would these days have put both of them in jail for a good long time.

To bolster our home remedies in dealing with extreme or stubborn ailments, we would reluctantly resort to over–the-counter drugs. My mother and I suffered with migraine headaches, and ingested quantities of aspirin that would horrify today’s doctors. Eventually, our savior for these attacks was codeine, which at the time we could buy without a prescription, though I’m not sure that’s the case today in the UK, and certainly it isn’t in the US.

Looking back on my life from the pinnacle of ripe old age, it would be easy to propose that our home pharmacopeia was instrumental in my own and my family’s longevity and substantially good health, but I venture that it would be a false claim. A more likely explanation is that we were fortunate to have good genes and a degree of commonsense.

There’s also the possibility that staying at a distance from the medical profession, initially through necessity, and later from conviction, helped to keep us out of trouble. In saying that, I mean no disrespect to the doctors; I have since benefitted mightily from their skills, but only that doctors are by nature compulsive healers.

Therefore, if you regularly seek professional medical help with only a vague description of what often turn out to be transient symptoms, the chances are you’ll be treated for something. The danger in this is over-medication. How many times do you hear of patients who have been medicated for this by one specialist, and for that by another, with neither doctor knowing what the other was prescribing?

In my own case, I have in recent times succumbed, screaming and kicking, to pill popping. I’m not yet at the point of having to rely on a pill box with day of the week compartments, but I’m getting there. So I have my personally selected, daily vitamins; my prescribed pill for an underactive thyroid; a witty and charming pill for my grumpy old man syndrome; and, horror of horrors, a statin for my vascular plaque.

I guess you could say I’ve sold out to the pharmaceutical industry, but in my defense I’d claim to have put up a long and successful fight. Now my concern is that if I succumb to even more medication I might live longer than I want to. As the comedic actress Gilda Radna’s character, Rosanna Rosanna Dana would say, “It’s always something.”

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