A lot has been said and written about over the counter drugs. However, have you for a moment thought that prescribed drugs aren?t completely safe either? Well, for one, quite a lot of drugs banned in other countries continue to be available in India. Analgin, Nise, Nimulid aren?t just easily available over-the-counter but are also prescribed widely by the doctors.
The doctors have a list to share as well. ?Omperozole, Rabeparazole are most commonly prescribed for stomach ulcers. They decrease acid production in the stomach and this leads to colonisation by the bacteria,? says Dr Ajay K Sachdev, gastroentologist, Umkal Healthcare. Cisapride, still available in India, is a drug usually avoided by gastroenterologists because it is known to alter ECG.
?All medicines can have side effects, some of which can be significant or serious. So, it is important for every doctor to advise his patients about potential side effects of the drugs prescribed and the action to be taken if any such side effect appears during use. This is especially important when a drug is prescribed for the first time to a given patient. It is equally important that the patient takes the medications regularly and never indulges in self-medication or concurrent treatment from multiple doctors for the same ailment. Many patients are known to do that,? says Dr Peeyush Jain, principal consultant cardiologist, Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre, New Delhi.
One needs to be even more careful with children. ?Children usually fall ill due to viral infections. So, there is little need to administer antibiotics to them, unless specifically indicated. High generation antibiotics should be used judiciously as it can lead to antibiotic resistance,? says Dr Vikas Taneja, senior consultant pediatrics, Columbia Asia Hospital, Gurgaon. ?Combination medications are irrational, they add to cost and also increase the incidence of side effects,? he further says. (Refer to the box for more)
Medicines are undoubtedly a complex subject. According to a recent study in US, there is no evidence that brand-name drugs given to treat heart and other cardiovascular conditions work any better than their cheaper generic counterparts. ?The findings run counter to the perception by some doctors and patients that pricier brand-name drugs are clinically superior,? writes Dr Aaron Kesselheim of Brigham and Women?s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, who led the study.
Another study, published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association, points out that almost 70% of older adults who take prescription medications also use non-prescription drugs, dietary supplements or both. This puts one in 25 older adults at serious risk of suffering a bad reaction to a poor combination of drugs. The analysis of the study also brought forward other interesting results.
For one, more than half of the potential adverse interactions involved use of two over-the-counter substances, like Ginkgo Biloba and Aspirin. Also, while women were more likely to use prescription medications and dietary supplements, men were more likely to suffer from an adverse drug interaction.
?People may perceive drugs that they can obtain without a prescription as safer than prescription drugs, but what makes them less safe is that no one knows you?re taking them,? writes Dr Stacy Tessler Lindau, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology and medicine-geriatrics at the University of Chicago Medical Center and one of the authors of the paper.
Given the complexities, it is worth the effort to think twice before you pop that pill in.