Pills?

[Enriana]

I take anti-depressants, and pills to get to sleep. I was on contraceptive for a while, but it ended up not working out (I'll spare you the details), so I'm not on it now.

I take Ibuprofen when necessary, Aleve during my period. If I'm up, can't fall asleep, and have already taken my sleep medication - usually when I wake up in the middle of the night - I'll take a half to a whole of Bendadryl.

I take allergy medication when I need to. I'm supposed to take it daily, but only take it daily when my allergies are acting up - during the winter, I rarely have to, though fall allergies are a bitch.

And. Yeah. That's all.

[Zap]

Hm.

I'm usually on birth control, so Lindsey doesn't get me pregnant. JOKING.

My boyfriend and I use condoms and birth control pills, just in case.

... because we're planning to be childfree, and we don't want to be to blame for homosexuals pushing up the abortion rate.

we really should bring back the green text for times like these...

[hue]

The last time I took pill/medicine was four years ago, and even then, it just made me feel worse so I didn't anymore. I prefer drinking a warm cup of milk when I'm sick to taking medicine, and taking a long shower can help with the cramps, I guess I'm just one of those people that doesn't like to solve problems with medicine.

[tallan]

Anti-depressants and sleeping pills, and anti-anxiety whenever I need it. I'd love to be medicine free, but when it's a choice between taking pills and having my life fall apart, it's not really a hard decision.

[Wingsrising]

While I respect people's decisions not to take medication -- I have to say:

The fact that I take Allegra for allergies and Advil for cramps does not mean that I think I can solve all my problems by throwing a pill at them.

Thank you and have a nice day.

[Mistress Morbid]

I just take contraceptives and the occasional advil and such for migraines/headaches/etc. But the birth control pill's the only real routine one.

[Figment]

I take ridiculous amounts of pills. On good days I take seven prescription pills -- three medications -- and a painkiller or a vitamin to round it out because even with all of these psychiatric pills I can't stand to consume uneven amounts of pills. I also take sleeping pills, which is another two.. Anti-depressant, anti-psychotic, mood stabilizer, and sleeping pills.

More pills than I've ever taken in my life at any time. It's pretty bad. I'm a veteran pill-eater, but this is quite a lot, too much, really.

[Alicorn]

I take vitamins when I remeber to do so..the usual daily vitamin sort of thing. I tried those chewable vitamins and they were pretty good..a lot better then swallowing. I have a small throat so those vitamins are like horse pills. But I went back to the pills cause they are cheaper. ^_^"
I only take pain pills if I have a real bad pain but I usual try other things first. Like the heat therapy pads for cramps and muscle rub for muscle pain. If I do take pain pills its Ibuprofen and for cramps, if they are really bad, I take the midal my sister has. Then when my sinuses act up I only take sinus pills, off brand equate ones, when they get really bad and I can't breath through my nose when I go to bed...that is the most annoying thing. Though I got those vapor things that you plug in and they work great.

[Fjorab_Teke]

I'mon low-dose contraceptive pills, since I'm a married childfreer and it helps regulate and lessen the ickiness of periods. I've been on them for quite a while now. That's the only thing I take daily, except vitamins when I remember and chocolate calcium supplement chews if I feel like having one. Gummy vitamins, the better kinds, are yummy, and I can tolerate big veggie-organic-type pills Mom found at the natural foods store.

I also sometimes take children's Benadryl allergy syrup, since so far that's what's most effective for me with the only side-effect of making me drowsy. I have a prescription for nausea pills, but I only take those as needed, which isn't often but it's nice to have them. Aside from those, on rarer occasions I'll take Alka-Seltzer type stuff for upset stomach or cold symptoms. I also use ibuprofen if I get cramps.

[AngharadTy]

While I respect people's decisions not to take medication -- I have to say:

The fact that I take Allegra for allergies and Advil for cramps does not mean that I think I can solve all my problems by throwing a pill at them.

Thank you and have a nice day.

Yes, thank you. I couldn't agree more. I may contentedly use drugs when I feel they would help me, but that doesn't mean that medication is the route I prefer to take by default. I always try other methods. If my options are A) cry in pain and be unable to do more than curl up in bed with a box of tissues, or B) take a Midol and be back to normal almost immediately, I'm going to go with option B. Showers don't always help with cramps. And very little helps with migraines except for medicine, though I use Excedrin Migraine rather than something prescription. (I also start by massaging my hands, hoping to head off the migraine rather than need medication--given the way my migraine aura works, that sometimes helps. But not always.)

And of course there's nothing that works quite like birth control. Condoms break, feel funny, smell funny, cause allergies, aren't as effective; hormonal treatments regulate periods, help control acne, have a greater effectiveness, reduce cramps. My husband had a vasectomy, so I don't need birth control, but I'm going to see about getting back on the pill, because I have such severe cramps off it that I am actually incapacitated for a couple days a month. That's ridiculous. And even so, I'm not taking that as the easy way out--I've tried to come up with other solutions for 15 months now.

hue, you may not have meant to sound condescending, but that's definitely how it came off. It is not a weakness to need medication; it's not the way we "like to solve problems." It's a solution, and though it's not the only solution, it can genuinely hurt people if you imply that they're weak-willed or even pathetic for needing it.

[Ziggy]

It always amazes me how many people I meet on a daily basis who are on pills, not things like contraception, but things to help them cope with life.

It makes me wonder if Im just amazingly lucky/thick skinned, or if these people are just....weak?
Before everyone leaps on me and is all like 'OmG you don't understand! How dare you label everyone!!1 blah blah blah' I am NOT saying everyone who is on pills is weak. That would be a sweeping generalisation and pretty foolish to make. Im perfectly well aware that some people truly need them and they are a great help. I can't stress that enough, so no one get offended, kay?

However, I DO refuse to believe that everyone I meet who is on some kind of medication truly needs to be on it.
Me and roach were talking about this the other night. In our social circle, the vast majority of people we hung out with in our teens ended up on prozac or similar to cope with 'depression'. All of those people are now fucked up in some way, or worse off than they were when we knew them.

Roach, myself, our friend Tin and Roachs fella were all OFFERED the chance to go onto meds for 'depression' when we were teens, and all of us refused those meds as we all believe throwing pills at something won't solve it, and are all dubious of the doctors tendancy to just throw pills at anything they don't understand. And all of us are now far far more together and happy than any of the people we knew who spend their lives popping prescription pills. And all of us are so happy we refused these drugs.

I truly do believe their is a culture of people thinking they need pills to get through every day life, and to be brutally honest, I find it pretty annoying. We ALL have stresses in our lives, we all have sadness, we all have issues which are tough and we all have the trials of life. When I see people running off and popping pills to 'cope' I actually cannot physically HELP myself from viewing them as weak.

There are some people who I think DO need meds, so again, its not EVERYONE. But I certainly know a good amount of people who I truly do not think NEED these pills and are having more harm than good done to them by them.

I would be very very dubious of any doctor who prescribed pills for something such as 'depression' without first exploring all other possibilities like therapy and such. But doctors do! People are running about convinced they're ill and they need drugs to function, and I think its really damaging to our society. I know more people who are ON some kind of pills now than people who aren't! Thats got to be fucked up.
I know people who have had HIDEOUS lives who didn't run to pills to cope, and are fine now. I know people who had what I'd deem par for the course normal lives who insisted they needed drugs to cope, who are now fucked up.

Bascially, I have a very negative view of taking pills to deal with every day life or 'stress' or 'depression'.
Painkillers I don't see in the same vien. Pain is either there or it isn't, you can't fool yourself that you have a debilitating headache or period pains if you don't (well, I guess you can, but in general). I suffer from headaches so I take the occasional ibuprofen to get rid of them, but if possible I'll try to get rid of them by other means first.

Once again, I KNOW some people do need pills, and I know there are som valid cases. But I refuse point blank to believe that the AMOUNT of people I meet who claim to need drugs actually need drugs. If they do, the human race is turning into a fucking joke.

[Cheese]

I DO refuse to believe that everyone I meet who is on some kind of medication truly needs to be on it.

I'm with you there. Depression as a mental illness has gotten way out of hand. I just doesn't seem true that everyone that claims to be depressed can be.

Some people are, I know that and if medication helps them live a normal life then great, good for them, but some people aren't depressed. A friend of mine's dog died, so she obviously spiralled into depression and get put on prozac. She wasn't depressed she was fed up. She didn't want to get out of bed because she was sad that her dog was dead and didn't want to be awake without him there with her.

If I ever found that I was getting "depressed" I'd want to try other things before even seeing a doctor. I'd take a nice holiday, maybe go to the zoo or something. Shit a plate of mashed potatoes would be enough to cheer me up.

[Wingsrising]

My general experience is that people who actually have experience with depression (either suffering from it themselves or from having a friend or loved one suffer though it) very rarely see taking anti-depressants as "throwing pills at all their problems to solve them."

For one thing, I could only wish that anti-depressants actually worked that well.

As it happens, anti-depressants don't solve all your problems. They don't actually solve any of your problems, just (hopefully) improve your ability to solve them. And, if you're brain chemestry isn't already out of whack they don't do a hell of a lot.

My personal experience with treatment for depression is that the first doctors and therapists I went to were very reluctant to believe I was depressed because I didn't break down crying in her office (hello, I said I thought I was depressed, not that I was so incapable of functioning in everyday life that I regularly break down in front of total strangers). They were likewise very reluctant to prescibe medication and insisted I try standard talk therapy even though:

1) I know the statistics and know that standard talk therapy (as opposed to cognitive behavioral therapy) has not been found to be an especially effective treatment for depression.

2) I've tried it for years and it's never helped the depression.

I was so relieved to finally find a doctor who believed me and was willling to work with me to try to find something that will actually help. While I'm not totally better, the medications have made a noticible difference to me and I'm grateful for them.

Who are you to say who is and isn't "really" depressed? It's this self-righetous judgement of people who decide to accept a sometimes life-saving treatment as "weak" or "throwing pills at their problems" that perpetuates the stigmatization of mental illness and prevents people from getting treatment who need it.

[Ziggy]

Who are you to say who is and isn't "really" depressed? It's this self-righetous judgement of people who decide to accept a sometimes life-saving treatment as "weak" or "throwing pills at their problems" that perpetuates the stigmatization of mental illness and prevents people from getting treatment who need it.

I don't believe I have ever claimed I am able to diagnose depression. Im not a doctor (and god know some DOCTORS can't even tell) but Im entitled to an opinion on whether I think someone isn't, just as you're entitled to an opinion that they ARE.


I merely said that I refuse to believe that everyone who is popping pills truly needs to be doing so, nor do I believe it is beneficial for everyone, and that its actually damaging for many people.
Like I said, my doctor tried to get me to take pills, and I said no. And what do you know, Im fine! If I'd been one of these people who trust completely every single thing their doctor says, as some people do, I could have been on pills quite easily.
And as has been proven by the fact that Im alive and well, I certainly didn't need them.

Now how often is this happening? How odten are people being told to take pills and trusting their doctor to do right by them, and taking meds they don't need? More than just me, Im pretty damn sure.

If my attitude of not blindly believing every single person who claims to need pills to cope with life is damaging to people (which I don't believe for a second) then its certainly no more damaging than the opposite view, which is believing every single individual who feels down needs pills.

I think your response was a little overly defensive. No one was claiming anything other than an opinion based on personal experiences.

If you read my post, I actually said that I accept SOME people need pills, in fact, I repeated that MANY times because I know how much some people are ready to leap in with the response you showed above and claim anyone who doesn't believe pills are necessary for every situation is 'self righteous'.
I mean, how many times do I have to say it? I KNOW some people need pills, I know they CAN be life saving.

Im simply saying that not ALL people who claim to need pills or who are popping pills need them. I certainly don't believe each one of the 10 something people I know who are on pills truly need them. As I said, I know more people in my life who ARE popping pills for 'depression' or 'inability to deal with life' than those who aren't, and that would suggest the majority of people on earth need to be on medication to live their life?
Sorry, not buying that. At all. I think the people who truly need meds are the exception, not the rule.

But if someone is convinced Im a self righteous prick just because I don't believe every single person on earth who claims they cannot live normally without drugs, then pfff, let them think that. I couldn't care less.

But I think if anyone here can stand up and truly say they think each person on earth who is taking pills to 'cope' actually needs them and it isn't a case of misdiagnoses or the culture of taking pills at the drop of a hat, and they seriously think every single case is authentic, I'd think they were being delusional, and that attitude is at LEAST as damaging as an attitude of sceptisism.

[hauntedoll]

I haven't taken any pills for over three years and not often before that. When I was younger I simply hated all sorts of pills and mum couldn't force me to take them but now it's all because I don't trust medice or doctors. Besides I've always been somewhat immune to them and they never had any positive effect anyway. Ibuprofane is something I've never tried but that's just because I atleast don't remember having bad headaches before recently. And now I understand why people need them.

I agree with Ziggy about doctors prescribing pills too easily. I personally belive that pain is all in our heads but don't judge people who search for solutions in drugs. My problems can't be solved with pills but some people might find solutions in drugs and that's their choice. And in a way it's actually quite brave to dare to ask for help and admit needing it. I myself don't have enough courage to do that. I rather suffer and keep to my honey tea with eucalyptus pastils.

I've had to change my opinion on the effectiveness of drugs a lot lately(especially since I'm currently on a neuropsychology course). My aunt has schizophrenia but thanks to drugs I didn't even suspect anything like it for almost 17 years.