Riding The Wave – Multiple Myeloma

“It is easy to get a thousand prescriptions but hard to get one single remedy.”  – Chinese Proverb

A story at Yahoo is stating that acetaminophen is now connected to increased risk of blood cancers. Now that caught my attention of course. But then, as we often do, I thought “Dave never took Tylenol or any aspirin or aspirin substitutes.” Funny how we relate everything to ourselves and our own experiences, anecdotally. Anyway, here is my take…

We are a highly drugged society. We pop pills for everything. When told we need to lose weight or restrict certain excesses to better our health situation or quality of life, many of us don’t, and instead take a pill, over the counter or prescription to offset what we are doing that we were told to change. They have said that you are likely to be on one drug everyday for every 10 years of life. That would mean I should be on five drugs a day as I’m now 50 something. And here’s the kicker… that is considered “normal”. Well folks, it’s not normal. It’s modern America normal, but it is not a situation I think we should accept as normal.

Ok, so the viewpoint and struggles as I see them, is that drugs for first aide are a good thing. They are life saving. End of story. We should avail ourselves of things that will make our experience more tolerable in a minor or severe crisis. I have zero qualms with that. But balance that against the chronic, daily, use of drugs to better a physical condition and there is where you lose my support. I’m not saying you can’t and shouldn’t ever, but I do believe that taking the harder, more arduous road of getting to the underlying cause of chronic headaches, anxiety, pain, stiffness, heart issues, blood pressure, etc., is worth all efforts on your part to sort out. Keep taking what you are taking, don’t stop without advice from doctors, but don’t arbitrarily accept their solution to your problem as the only solution. It is an easy solution. Please, don’t be so cavalier with putting this stuff in your body on a regular basis. I have rarely met the person who sincerely made efforts to find underlying causes and alternative remedies who wasn’t successful. I have met many who make half hearted efforts or none at all and tell me things like “there are too many people on these drugs, but I have to be because…”

I had a young co-worker friend of mine, in her mid to late 20s. I adore her. As we got to know each other I learned she had all sorts of health issues (mostly female) that she was taking medication for. I was taken aback, quite frankly. She was so young to be popping so many pills on a regular basis. After we got to know each other a little better, I casually said, “You know, you are way too young to be on so many medications. I’m concerned.” That’s all I said. She later came to me and began to ask a few pointed questions. She is extremely smart and with a little bit of encouragement from me, she was off and running doing her own research. She is no longer on any medications at all. Extremely healthy, eating amazingly well, exercising, dropped 20 pounds, has a toddler and quite frankly could run circles around me now with her knowledge and lifestyle. She still has some issues with a few things, but she has learned to pay attention to it and improve its impact on her successfully and continually without all the drugs. Her acne is gone, her emotions are balanced, its amazing.

I met a woman when I was in my late 20’s who gave her two young children Tylenol every night before bed. I was listening to her tell me this in the kitchen doing everything I could to not choke on my beverage. She said that they played outside a lot and would be sore and tired at night and wake her up, so she just gave them Tylenol, EVERY NIGHT!

People give their kids Benedryl to make them sleep on airplanes (mind you I can almost buy into that with a few difficult flights myself!).

Even with Dave’s cancer – pain drugs, chemotherapy, loss of muscle mass, fatigue, emotional stress, etc., I was always looking for ways to improve these conditions that didn’t further compromise him, while keeping his comfort the higher priority. It was always with the idea it would be somewhat temporary for much of it. It was very hard for both of us, as our medicine cabinet was never very stocked. We had the basics, but we weren’t on anything everyday or even often. We really had to alter our point of view and understand we were in a new paradigm.

Anyway, the point is, there is no completely safe drug, there can be ramifications. Don’t deny yourself comfort and ease, but remember to take some time and effort to see what other things you can do to better your situation for the long haul.

Just so we are clear, I’m not judging, I don’t do that. I don’t like pain or discomfort or even giving up what I like or exercising more because it’s a good thing. I struggle like everyone else. But I do make concerted efforts to first, be properly diagnosed and second, look at what is recommended, and third, look for other options in my behavior or remedies. I will take drugs, but I am reticent and cautious about it. Drugs have their place in our world, but I just think we have gotten caught up in the idea that when our bodies are doing something undesirable, we suppress it and get on with our day. I choose to look at it as a communication from my body that something is wrong, and I need to look at why that is. Our bodies can take a tremendous amount of abuse and right itself. We should try to help it in the least toxic way possible.

I’m rambling, as usual here… in reading this story I was not surprised that it is dealing with folks who take this drug chronically. Then I was thinking about how cancer seems so pervasive in the western societies and all that we don’t know about its causes. We cite genetics, environment, toxic exposure, obesity, excessive alcohol, diet, inactivity, stress, etc. No one knows for sure, but clearly we have a problem. In light of the lack of definitive knowledge of what one thing, or multiple things definitely cause cancer, I would urge you to simply and sanely be wise in the choices you make in your life in what you eat, your exercise or lack thereof, chemicals you use in your home, medicines you routinely take to sleep, for sore muscles, etc. Don’t buy into the hype and the easy road, as the price may be high. Understand too, that you can do it all right and be healthy and still get cancer. In the meantime, just be smart about it.

So will I take Tylenol? If I need too. I prefer buffered Aspirin. The minute you say substitute to me, I’m suspicious. The reason for Tylenol and other aspirin substitutes were stomach problems. I don’t have any problems taking aspirin and I take it so seldom, that for me, the real stuff is just fine. But it’s in Percocet (a pain narcotic) which I just recently took for my dental surgery. You would laugh… the doctor said he would get me a script for Vicodin before I came and I bluntly said, “Uh, my drug of choice is Percocet.” He looked at me funny and I said, “I’m over 50, I have had my share of acute pain requiring light use of narcotics. I know what I like and don’t like. I don’t like Vicodin and do like Percocet.” We had a great laugh actually. But I did refuse the sedatives and knock out gas. Just numb me up buddy, just numb me up.

Tags: blood cancers & tylenol, drug society