What You Should Know About Drugs Part I
(Page 3 of 3)
FERGUSON: A lot of people would feel cheated
if they got advice instead of medication.
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GRAEDON: Absolutely. Many of the pressures
for drug use come from the client. We live in an "instant"
society today, and — when folks are ill — they expect
instant relief. Besides that, the doctors who are charging you
$50 for a 15-minute visit aren't likely to recommend a
nonprescription treatment like aspirin, even if that common
medication happens to be the best and safest remedy for the
illness . . . people will feel that they could have done that
much for themselves.
FERGUSON: How can we break such patterns?
GRAEDON: People have to learn some basic
clinical medicine for themselves . . . health workers need to
step out of their authority roles a bit and share their own
uncertainties and doubts . . . and medical education needs to
stress non-drug treatment.
Right now, if someone comes into a physician's office with
high blood pressure, the doctor's first thought will usually be
to prescribe a thiazide diuretic . . . but a more appropriate
initial step might be to recommend that the person lose weight,
begin exercising, quit smoking, cut down on salt intake, learn
new ways of dealing with stress, or apply a useful combination of
these self-care approaches.
FERGUSON: What are some good self-health-care
tools that are available in drugstores?
GRAEDON: One very good tool is the dipstick
packet you can use to test your own urine. It provides a number
of easy, inexpensive, and completely safe screening tests for
excess sugar, blood, or protein in the urine.
Another new kit allows you to test your own stool specimen for
traces of blood. Persons over 40 should take such an examination
once a year: All they have to do is touch the fecal sample to a
piece of moistened test paper . . . the strip changes color if
blood is present.
And I highly recommend blood pressure cuffs for home use.
Having your own tester is very helpful if you have high blood
pressure and are working at controlling it on a self-help basis.
The cuff provides a kind of biofeedback.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Part II of the Joe Graedon interview,
covering the drugs that should be kept on hand at home, will
appear in MOTHER NO. 63. Tom Ferguson's quarterly journal,
Medical SelfCare, is available for $10 per year from MSC, Dept.
TMEN, Box 717, Inverness, California 94937.
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