42 Dreams of Arizona Bay

13. Drug commercials. Who thought that allowing pharmaceutical companies to market to the public was a good idea? Actually, I’m often entertained by drug commercials. The first part of the commercial features happy people doing things they never thought they could do before, like go outside, enjoy pets, live without the pain of arthritis. Others are more somber in tone, touching on depression. Do you ever feel sad for no reason? Do you often get angry? Frustrated?
You see the story set up, and hear about, now I can live without female bloating and gas.
And then the other two thirds of the commercial are about all the bad things you can get as side effects.
Sideeffects include dizziness, vomiting, numbness, riverdancing and barking in foreign languages. Women who might be pregnant in the next five years shouldn’t even think about touching a bottle of this stuff. If you have a history of depression or heart problems, thyroid disease or just breathe, this product may not be right for you. Talk to your doctor about this really great drug.
Have heard plenty of criticism about how doctors feel pressured by their patients who are sure they know what drug they need to take, now that they’ve seen the commercial on TV.
Maybe drug companies could just keep their marketing costs down a little and leave the medicating to doctors, and then medicine could be less expensive. Not to mention less scary.

Reminds me of when I went to get my wisdom teeth taken out. I was 15 years old, and the orthodontist said I needed to have them taken out so as not to wreck all the expensive work my parents just paid for.
My mom took me to this beaten down office of an oral surgeon. She worked at a hospital, and knew many of the doctors. This doctor worked in an office that had clearly seen better days.
As the doctor starts explaining some of the risks of surgery, he mentions nerve damage, excessive bleeding, brain damage, and possibly even death.
We’re just talking about my teeth here, but that’s when I got nervous. Mention death to a 15 year old, and of course she’s probably going to go pale.
So I in turn freaked out the surgeon, who then insisted that my teeth be taken out at the hospital instead of his office.
Which if I’d been thinking about it, runs the further risk of death. You want to talk about full anesthesia in a hospital? And getting blood work, a physical and an EKG? They don’t mess around with that death thing in outpatient surgery, either.
Would’ve been a lot better off to just have them out in the office. Probably one of those times where the doctor could’ve left out the death bit, or at least told my mom separately. Though I probably would’ve been pissed to be treated like a child.