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Medication fears lead to worse side effects
NEW YORK |
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - It may not be surprising, but a new study offers some proof that patients who are worried about their medications are more likely to have side effects from them.
The study involved patients with a particular kind of arthritis. While more research has to be done in patients with other illnesses to know for sure, "my guess would be that this is happening across a wide range of drugs," Dr. Yvonne Nestoriuc of Philipps-University Marburg in Germany, the study's lead author, told Reuters Health. "This is really something that happens in a lot of patient populations."
While most medication side effects are not life threatening or seriously harmful, she and her colleagues note in the journal Arthritis Care & Research, they can still be "frightening and distressing" to patients, and can also lead to patients not taking drugs as recommended.
People with a variety of illnesses who don't feel their medications are necessary and are concerned about their side effects are known to be less likely to take these drugs as directed, the researchers add.
To investigate whether these beliefs might be related to experiencing side effects as well, Nestoriuc and her team had 100 rheumatoid arthritis patients complete the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire, which explores general and specific beliefs about the necessity and risks of medication. Patients also reported on any side effects related to their rheumatoid arthritis medication and on how much they were bothered by these symptoms.
Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease characterized by inflammation that leads to stiff, swollen and painful joints. It affects some 20 million people, according to the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society.
At the study's outset, 77 of the patients reported having been bothered by side effects. Eighty-seven of the original 100 study participants were followed up at six months; 45 of these patients, or 52 percent, reported being bothered by side effects at this point.
The patients who had concerns about their medications, for example agreeing with the statement that "having to take arthritis medications worries me," were more likely to have reported having side effects, both at the study's outset and if they started a new drug during the six-month study period. Side effects typically included rashes, gastrointestinal discomfort, and headaches.
These patients were also more likely to report these side effects to their doctors, take non-prescription medications to deal with them, and change their medication dosages on their own. The only other factor that influenced the likelihood of reporting side effects was age.
Patients with rheumatoid arthritis "who are especially concerned about their arthritis medications, or who expect side effects, are at greater risk of experiencing them," the researchers say.
"Starting a new drug is a specifically risky time because people tend to misattribute pre-existing bothersome but non-harmful symptoms as side effects of the new drug," Nestoriuc said.
Doctors may be able to help their patients avoid side effects by talking with them about their concerns before prescribing a new medication, she added, and helping them to get a more "realistic view about the drugs."
SOURCE: Arthritis Care & Research, online February 26, 2010.
Oh dear. So now some of these side effects are our fault, presumably we ought to accept everything we’re told and just not worry.
My distrust of toxic drugs led me to take low dose naltrexone (LDN) – it’s controlling my RA and has shrunk a carcindoid tumour in my guts I didn’t know I had – nor did the doctors and toxic drugs could have made it worse.
LDN has made my immune system healthy so it deals with attacks on my body in the normal way – and its effectiveness and safety record is second to none. We’re campaigning to get governments to fund trials for this off patent treatment in Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales.
This seems like a poorly controlled and interpreted study to me. For instance, there is a major chicken-or-egg issue here. It is likely that people who have had a history of getting adverse side effects from drugs (many of us are sensitive and/or allergic to a lot of things, including drugs) are more likely to fear the possible onset of adverse side effects. It’s not the anxiety that is causing the side effects, and it’s not that they are misdiagnosing symptoms – they are simply reacting to what they have historically experienced.
In order to come to any legitimate conclusion from a study, there have to be controls – were there any controls in this study, in order to filter out people who have a history of being legitimately chemically sensitive/allergic?
Another flaw in the research, as I see it, is the length of the study. It would be interesting to see follow ups in 1 year, then 18 months, 2 years plus.
But the medications used aren’t mentioned either. Rheumatoid arthritis is the immune system attacking the body. Most drugs prescribed suppress the inflammation or the immune system. That can sooner or later lead to further problems.
If a patient understands this and does not feel it’s what’s needed, they won’t be happy with the drug. Such patients have the right to be sceptical and already have a “realistic” notion of what the drugs do.
I had such concern about the meds I was told to take for my severe RA that I spent time at Stanford Med Library reading texts and journals, current and archived.
Based on what I learned decided to ignore the drugs and designed my own protocol also based on research. By doing so, I cured the severe RA and have been symptom free for years. Of course the drug companies call me an outlier, or just a liar, and doctors dismiss by megavitamin and herbal protocol as useless, but actually there was plenty in the literature to back me up. Of course it wasn’t funded by Ely Lilly (at least not in the past 60 years, but you might be surprised what work was done on vitamins before FDA made that end in the 50’s.)
If I had known about low dose naltrexone like poster 1 I would have taken that. I do know about ldn now and I do take it for another autoimmune illness and it has changed my life. Toxic drugs for an increasingly burdened immune system is a disaster about to happen. People need to know more about substitutes like ldn that normalize the immune system.
