Testing It Up

Not enough parents are safeguarding their medicine cabinets according to the recently rising numbers of children going to ER’s with poisoning from prescription drugs ingested without the parent’s prior knowledge. The number of children affected, reaching more than 70,000 under the age of 18, is shocking.  About 8-14 % of this number were from parents unintentionally overdosing their children and 75% of those overdoses were with children who were less than 5 years old. More than twice as many kids are poisoned by prescription drugs as household products each year.  These facts which should have parents making much more serious efforts to protect their children from getting access to these drugs, are actually considered to be an underestimate.  The drug most commonly found in these overdoses was acetaminophen, followed by opioid painkillers and anti-anxiety medications. While caution is recommended in the home it’s also been pointed out that packaging and labels could be improved  and therefore have an impact on these numbers as well.

Today, my roommate had a hectic day and when he came back to the room, tired and exhausted, he just fell on the bed.  With this head threatening to do a big-bang, he cried out ‘Oh God’! And God was right there in the cupboard … in the form of Aspirin! Aspirin has rightly come to be known as the wonder drug of the 19th century for it serves a diverse array of medicinal purposes, from being a pain reliever to an active ingredient of a lot of shampoos! Surprised by its use in shampoos? Join the club, you aren’t the only one!!

Aspirin is the acetylated derivative of salicylic acid; used as an analgesic anti-inflammatory drug which belongs to a group of medicines called non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). It works as a pain reliever by blocking the action of cyclooxygenase enzymes that control the production of prostaglandin hormones.

Aspirin may not cure everything, but it has uses far beyond than a pain-killer! The active ingredient of aspirin i.e. salicylic acid serves as an astringent, causing contraction of body tissues. As a result, aspirin can also be used in face washes. Nowadays, it is often prescribed in lower doses as an anti-platelet as it prevents blood clotting too! There are also few contradictory reports on benefits of aspirin in preventing repeated miscarriages. A study published in Oxford Journals in Oct 2000 reported that low doses of aspirin significantly improved the chances of full term births in women that had previously experienced late term miscarriages while another paper published in British Medical Journal (BMJ) in Aug 2003 reported that taking aspirin around the time of conception or for longer than a week during pregnancy increased the chance of miscarriage by 80%! Then in 2004, a study was published in Journal of the American Medical Association which reported that women who had taken aspirin at least once per week for six months or longer were 20% less likely to develop certain breast tumors! Further, this January, a paper published in Journal of Clinical Investigation by a group at Yale reported that aspirin cuts liver damage in mice by interfering with a chemical pathway that triggers an inflammatory response that damages the liver.

Aspirin has been one of the most reliable wardrobe tablets for decades! It is an excellent pain killer, an amazing anti-inflammatory drug which also helps in preventing blood clotting. And as far as its mysterious presence in shampoos is concerned, it is explained by the anti-fungal properties of the aspirin’s active component – salicylic acid. Now that doesn’t mean that you should let yourself be a goofball trying to add crushed aspirin to your hair-wash! You may find more about pain-killer drugs and their side-effects here! More research is warranted to establish the aforementioned associations and it is certainly not advisable to take aspirin, or any other medication for that matter, for purposes other than what it is prescribed for, without consulting your physician.

Hospitals, depressed patients and crying babies – a deadly combination that seems to take a toll on me everytime I enter the Genetic clinic wards in pediatrics these days. Spice that up with the pernicious vocal bombs from my thesis supervisor and little wonder that I end up with a bad headache when the sun goes down! Everytime that happens, my mind tells me just to pop in a pain-killer and call it a day but since that “poppin-in” thing has started turning into almost a routine, I thought I would better get a reality check.

Pain-killers, as they are called, do kill pain, but at the same time they seem to be doing much more than that! Just today, a kiwi newspaper reported about a man who turned to marijuana to escape side-effects of pain killers! In November last year, Washington post reported about the death of a professional NFL player whose life took a rapid descent fueled by chronic use of a painkiller prescribed to deal with the lingering soreness of playing professional football. In fact, various reports indicate that several cases of kidney and liver failures can be associated, at least partially, to the continuous use of analgesics. Some popular analgesic drugs like Paracetamol and Aspirin, which have decorated cupboards across the globe for quite some time now, are very useful without any doubt but may not be as necessay as they are percieved to be. A mild headache, for instance, can easily be treated effectively by simply sipping two or three glasses of water followed by some rest!

Abusing Pain-killers can rather make your headaches worse, requiring more of them and thus making you addicted to them. The Huffington Post made an interesting revelation about Cindy McCain in June last year that in the mid-nineties she was addicted to prescription pain killers! Not just her, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), an estimated 5.2 million people used painkillers in 2006 for nonmedical reasons in United States and disturbingly that’s more than twice the 2.4 million people that are estimated to abuse cocaine! If we look more closely at these pain killers, this addictive trend is easy to grasp – most of the painkillers are made up of opoids - a class of highly effective but also highly addictive pain relievers!

So, the moral of the story is that having a mild headache does not necessarily mean one should just grab a pill and pop it in, rather try taking a chill pill with some water and doze yourself off, at least as a preliminary step!

The mere mention of drug abuse brings with it a negative connotation, and anyone who has fallen into the trap is, more often than not, immediately branded as a delinquent or, worse, a criminal. Statistics will show, however, that while a lot of substance abusers are miscreants, there is a fraction of this population for whom the abuse started out of necessity.

Outside of the illegal drug trade, the next substance abused by addicts is prescription drugs. Not everyone, though, does the deed on purpose. What some people fail to realize is that prescription drugs can bring about addiction and dependency. This is why these medicines will only work for the better under a doctor’s guidance and supervision.

Unfortunately, even when the treatment has taken its course, the physical and emotional boost that prescription drugs can bring to some patients stay with them. This is what they will look for even after they have been cured. This is what will lead them to using the medicine beyond their physician’s advice. Since they started taking the drug for a legitimate purpose, they will see nothing wrong with continuing to do so.

The most common prescription drugs that end up being abused are painkillers and antidepressants. Some medicines that treat anxiety and depression when stopped abruptly can bring about withdrawal symptoms. Doctors usually place patients under a controlled, gradual decrease in dosage and frequency prior to total removal of the drug to reduce these effects.

The people who fall into this path are usually upstanding people who have been pushed by health issues and circumstance into these situations. Fortunately, there are ways now of testing oneself for substance abuse in the comfort and privacy of the home, away from prying and judging eyes.

At any rate, what is important is realizing and controlling the situation in time. Just remember that for anything, work with your doctor. It may not be an absolute, but he or she will always know what’s best for you.

Teenagers abusing prescription drugs is not a new thing. It seems we hear more about the problem now than what we used to, but students have been busted in schools for having possession of prescription drugs for many years.

For instance, in 1998 a student from a Southern Ohio high school was made to attend an alternative school for a week after she offered Vicodin to another student who had an injury. The student who had the Vicodin did have a prescription for it after having an appendectomy, but did not see the harm in offering it to the other student for her injury. However, the student who offered the drug was not aware that it was a narcotic.

The difference between then and now is the fact that most students are aware that painkillers such as Vicodin are narcotics and they know more about what they can do. They also know that they can make money off of them by selling them to other students or exchanging them for something else.

This shows that the drug problems today are not like they were a decade ago when the coolest way to get high was sniffing white-out or permanent markers. Prescription drugs are also becoming a growing issue in students as young as middle school age. This has resulted in many school systems looking to implement programs that help curb the exchange and consumption of prescription drugs by teens and pre-teens.

According to a study conducted by The University of Michigan Institute of Social Research, use of drugs like marijuana is down among teens, while the use of prescription painkillers has skyrocketed.

The use of hard drugs, however, like heroin and and cocaine has remained about the same. The same goes for drinking.

About 15% of 12th graders involved in the study admitted to abusing prescription painkillers within the past year.

This is dangerous stuff. Just because a drug is a prescription does not mean it can be taken for any old reason or for reasons not listed on the packaging. Always take drugs as directed.

Michigan Drug Screening