Wellness

[Mz iMac]

66

The only rx I take are for my migraines.

By my next birthday, I should be completely weaned off!

[qualitygal]

Only Ibprofen for arthritis and back aches. 69.

[excpa]

I'm 77(and a half) and stopped taking prescription meds about 3 or 4 years ago when I stopped going to a primary care provider.  I still see an opthamologist at least once a year.  When I finally came to accept that they just kept adding meds without re-evaluating the need (and I felt I was being treated as a collection of organs connected to a checkbook) I decided to give it all up.  I was taking a statin, 2 blood pressure meds, 2 diabetes meds and I think there were more, but I forget.   I was also sent to have all sorts of tests, usually expensive, time consuming and annoying, if not usually invasive.  I felt I was not listened to was concerned about drug interactions.  None of the medics I went to seemed to be concerned about drug interactions.  Strange thing:  my health improved greatly, as did my bank balance.  My eye doctor asks for my primary care physician and seems to accept (finally) that I don't have one.  I told him I had "trust issues" and he seems to agree.   I had a fall a few months back and found  my blood pressure was in the low-normal range, without meds.    My diabetes has not progressed and appears to have improved.   I don't know what my cholesterol is doing and I really don't care.  

I will (probably) seek medical help for an injury, but the idea of being tied down to some medical regimen that is not based on ME just doesn't appeal.  I did it for many, many years (40+) but no more.  I'm too old to die young and I really hate the modern medical climate that insists you meet some non-objective standard of measurements.  I object to being given anti-depressants and refuse them.  Since when do people not have the right to their emotions?  Why is everyone expected to be happy all the time?  Why is everyone so afraid of death?  (I'm not a fan of pain, but don't want to become adicted to some opioid medication.)  I rarely excercise, eat poorly and live a quiet, contemplative life.

 And I wonder a lot.  Ads for meds are followed by ads from lawyers wanting to represent you after you take the meds.   Ads for foods are followed by ads for weight loss plans.  I don't know what it  all means.

Don't know if this is what you wanted to know (or why you wanted to know) but I hope it helps.

[sassenach1]

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@excpa wrote:

I'm 77(and a half) and stopped taking prescription meds about 3 or 4 years ago when I stopped going to a primary care provider.  I still see an opthamologist at least once a year.  When I finally came to accept that they just kept adding meds without re-evaluating the need (and I felt I was being treated as a collection of organs connected to a checkbook) I decided to give it all up.  I was taking a statin, 2 blood pressure meds, 2 diabetes meds and I think there were more, but I forget.   I was also sent to have all sorts of tests, usually expensive, time consuming and annoying, if not usually invasive.  I felt I was not listened to was concerned about drug interactions.  None of the medics I went to seemed to be concerned about drug interactions.  Strange thing:  my health improved greatly, as did my bank balance.  My eye doctor asks for my primary care physician and seems to accept (finally) that I don't have one.  I told him I had "trust issues" and he seems to agree.   I had a fall a few months back and found  my blood pressure was in the low-normal range, without meds.    My diabetes has not progressed and appears to have improved.   I don't know what my cholesterol is doing and I really don't care.  

I will (probably) seek medical help for an injury, but the idea of being tied down to some medical regimen that is not based on ME just doesn't appeal.  I did it for many, many years (40+) but no more.  I'm too old to die young and I really hate the modern medical climate that insists you meet some non-objective standard of measurements.  I object to being given anti-depressants and refuse them.  Since when do people not have the right to their emotions?  Why is everyone expected to be happy all the time?  Why is everyone so afraid of death?  (I'm not a fan of pain, but don't want to become adicted to some opioid medication.)  I rarely excercise, eat poorly and live a quiet, contemplative life.

 And I wonder a lot.  Ads for meds are followed by ads from lawyers wanting to represent you after you take the meds.   Ads for foods are followed by ads for weight loss plans.  I don't know what it  all means.

Don't know if this is what you wanted to know (or why you wanted to know) but I hope it helps.

---

WELL SAID!  And my sentiments exactly.  I am not yet in my 60s.  I take no Rx drugs and only visit a doc when absolutely necessary.  My choice. I have long experience with close family members and some with myself that convinced me to stay away from the medical world if at all possible.  

[hoosieroriginal]

Just a prescription for hypertension.  That's it.  I had a lady I worked with a few years ago and she asked me what medications I took.  At that point, I took nothing - she was only in her 40s and took a ton of meds - later got hooked on pain meds and they ended up letting her go because she would leave work unannounced to go score some pain meds! 

I don't even take an aspirin if I don't need to -try to work through my pain.  If I ever had a fever in my life, I would stay home and let my body do what it does - a fever is your body working to make yourself better.  I think it all stems from my mom - she never took us to a doctor unless we needed stitches!  I exercise regularly (always have) and have walked probably a million miles in my lifetime between dogs and when I lived uptown San Diego - I walked everywhere instead of driving.  I get annual physicals.

[shaggygirl]

One baby aspirin per day, not a prescription, neverless prescribed by dr.

[SilleeMee]

No prescriptions for me. I'm 61.

[LexaMom]

I think this thread has stopped being a request for input and has begun to be an anti-Prescription Medicine thread.  Sorry, I come from a family of doctors and I feel blessed to live in a time when people with Glaucoma no longer go blind due to drops,  people with Cholesterol they inherited from their family no longer have heart attacks.  I had a hysterectomy and my ovaries out in my thirties, and losing estrogen cause my bone loss.   I feel blessed that I can use a drug to limit the damage.    Sorry ladies, but I think you are being much too critical of the drug industry.   I would probably be a blind 68 year olf with a heart condition if I had ignored my issues.

[Harpa]

DH is 67, I am 63 - both no prescription meds.

[LilacTree]

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@excpa wrote:

I'm 77(and a half) and stopped taking prescription meds about 3 or 4 years ago when I stopped going to a primary care provider.  I still see an opthamologist at least once a year.  When I finally came to accept that they just kept adding meds without re-evaluating the need (and I felt I was being treated as a collection of organs connected to a checkbook) I decided to give it all up.  I was taking a statin, 2 blood pressure meds, 2 diabetes meds and I think there were more, but I forget.   I was also sent to have all sorts of tests, usually expensive, time consuming and annoying, if not usually invasive.  I felt I was not listened to was concerned about drug interactions.  None of the medics I went to seemed to be concerned about drug interactions.  Strange thing:  my health improved greatly, as did my bank balance.  My eye doctor asks for my primary care physician and seems to accept (finally) that I don't have one.  I told him I had "trust issues" and he seems to agree.   I had a fall a few months back and found  my blood pressure was in the low-normal range, without meds.    My diabetes has not progressed and appears to have improved.   I don't know what my cholesterol is doing and I really don't care.  

I will (probably) seek medical help for an injury, but the idea of being tied down to some medical regimen that is not based on ME just doesn't appeal.  I did it for many, many years (40+) but no more.  I'm too old to die young and I really hate the modern medical climate that insists you meet some non-objective standard of measurements.  I object to being given anti-depressants and refuse them.  Since when do people not have the right to their emotions?  Why is everyone expected to be happy all the time?  Why is everyone so afraid of death?  (I'm not a fan of pain, but don't want to become adicted to some opioid medication.)  I rarely excercise, eat poorly and live a quiet, contemplative life.

 And I wonder a lot.  Ads for meds are followed by ads from lawyers wanting to represent you after you take the meds.   Ads for foods are followed by ads for weight loss plans.  I don't know what it  all means.

Don't know if this is what you wanted to know (or why you wanted to know) but I hope it helps.

---

@excpa

Yay!  Good for you, you truly deserve a medal and I mean that 100%!!!  I do not believe medications cure us, or keep us alive, especially when there is a new one every week . . . or several, with all of these goofy names, and long, exhausting warning labels that often include the same symptoms and illnesses that one already has!!

Big Pharma is nothing but a racket with the FDA's stamp of approval.  I am 79 (as of January) and have many autoimmune diseases including RA, Hashimoto's, Sjogren's Disease, and other autoimmune issues, plus severe osteoporosis (aggravated by one of the meds I take).  I take three meds when I have been prescribed at least 20.  I refuse to take them and doctors lose interest in me.  One goes to the doctor (any specialty, it doesn't matter which one) and within twelve minutes leave with one to three prescriptions.  If I even accept them, I don't fill them.  If I do occasionally fill one, I take one or two and by that time feel sicker than I was before I took them.  I give the rest of them to my daughter who works as an IT in a hospital network and she disposes of them there.

One doctor put me on a HBP med and I started to have side effects, muscular pain (I have enough with joint pain).  So I then went to my PCP who changed it to another HBP med which also gave me side effects.  They both had my records which indicated I had been taking ibuprofen for RA pain for several years.  Neither of them thought to take me off the ibuprofen . . . which was causing the HBP!!  I finally took myself to the "dreaded" Internet and read about ibuprofen, took myself off both the HBP med and the ibuprofen.  Within one week I had no side effects and . . . NO HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE!!!  In fact, ever since, my HBP has been on the low normal side, usually around 112/68 . . . perfect by today's standards. That's been for three years now.

There's a lot of criticism on this BB toward folks like you and me and you may not get it, but I probably will.  However, you are doing the right thing, you have my full support!