SCRATCH THAT ITCH

OK, this one might ruffle a feather or two. For anyone that knows me, and maybe you know me and don't know, I'm not a big fan of drugs, whether they be the over-the-counter or prescription perfectly legal drugs, or the Mexican cartel type illegal stuff. I don't even take Tylenol or a Bayer aspirin. Lots of reasons that I won't get into with this entry but probably will somewhere down the road, but one reason is that there isn't a drug on the planet that doesn't come with a giant list of possible side effects. I can't comprehend taking something to fix one problem that might cause another, or several other problems, for which I'd have to take something for, which may cause yet more problems and so on and so on. It's no wonder big pharmaceutical is a multi-gozillion dollar industry.

Now I don't want to get into a bunch of back and forth about mental disorders and just brush them ALL off as non-sense. I'm no doctor. Shocking, I know. But because of the way big pharmaceutical operates I do have my doubts on a whole bunch of these disorders that seem to have popped up everywhere you look any more. I do believe there are real mental issues and I do not want to discount or discredit those, but I am amazed at the way every little itch it seems, has become some sort of syndrome or disorder. I mean, commercials run non-stop suggesting you pop a pill for just about everything under the sun. Used to be that if you had an itch, you scratched it. You didn't need a drug for it and it didn't mean you had some kind of itch disorder.

There's a disorder for just about everything now. If you're a worrier you may have anxiety disorder. If you bite your fingernails you may have impulse control disorder. If you're moody, bipolar, and on and on and on. And these days there just so happens to be a drug you can take for it. How convenient. Got an itch, don't scratch, take this drug for it. When I was a kid and got that anxious feeling before a Little League game, I didn't have freaking anxiety disorder. It was just what we used to call butterflies. Happens to everyone. It's NORMAL!!! It passes once the game starts, and afterwards we go eat pizza. I didn't need a diagnosis of this, and a prescription to that.

As I said, I'm not trying to dismiss it all, but some of these things are a bit too much and really makes you wonder. And here's one that leans heavily in the bogus department, as far as I'm concerned. When I first heard the commercial for this I didn't think it was real. I thought it was the crazy guys on my morning radio show doing something goofy like they usually do. But that was not the case and I just could not believe what I was hearing. The commercial started out with some guy talking about working the graveyard shift and feeling like he's moving at half speed. He says, and I'm paraphrasing, "if you find this happens to you, you may be suffering from......SHIFT WORK DISORDER"!!!

Wow! Shift work disorder? Really? Oh, but that's not even the best part. The best part is that they do have a drug you can take for it. Now, I don't remember what the drug was on the radio commercial, but doing a web search I ran across something called Nuvigil. Their website says that this is a prescription medicine used to improve wakefulness in adults who experience excessive sleepiness due to one of the following diagnosed sleep disorders: obstructive sleep apnea, shift work sleep disorder, or narcolepsy. Well, there ya go. So you stay up during the day, because it is daylight out, when you should be sleeping because you do work at night, and instead of telling you to get the sleep you need, we'll just call this a disorder and sell you this drug. Uhhh....OK!

Genius marketing big pharm. Genius! You aren't going to make those trillions telling people to sleep, or to scratch that itch!!!

And of course, at the end of the commercial the guy talks at about 90 mph telling you all the warnings and side effects. Again from their website:
"Nuvigil may cause you to have a serious rash or a serious allergic reaction that may result in hospitalization or be life-threatening. If you develop a rash, hives, sores, swelling, or trouble swallowing or breathing, stop taking Nuvigil and call your doctor right away or get emergency treatment. Common side effects of Nuvigil are headache, nausea, dizziness, and trouble sleeping. If you experience chest pain, depression, anxiety, hallucinations, psychosis, mania, thoughts of suicide, aggression, or other mental problems, stop taking Nuvigil and call your doctor right away or get emergency treatment."

WHOA!!!! After that warning, why would anybody in their right mind swallow one of these things? That's right, because nobody is in their right mind any more. Big pharmaceutical throws this stuff at you, and has been doing so for so long now, that we're conditioned to it. We've become a society of hypochondriacs. People actually believe they need to slam a pill for any and every thing. And do you know what? All of these pills for all of these disorders and all these zillions of dollars that people fork over without a second thought because they're conditioned to believe they have a problem and need a pill.........and no one's getting any better and more and more pills are being taken!

Folks, big pharmaceutical rules the world!!!!