welcome to the organic green doctor blog

i am a family physician who was diagnosed with
early mild cognitive impairment(mci) amnestic type on december 21, 2010
this is a precursor to alzheimers disease
because of this diagnosis i have opted to stop practicing medicine
this blog will be about my journey with this disease
please feel free to follow me along this path
i will continue blogging on organic gardening, green living,
solar power, rainwater collection, and healthy living
i will blog on these plus other things noted to be interesting

Monday, December 27, 2010

the pill

THE PILL
the pill sits on my desk
its name is aricept
its generic name is donepezil
the mgm strength is 5 mg
just wrote a prescription a few days ago for my patient to take
now it sits here in front of me to take
had to listen to the neurologist go over the side effects
hell already know about it as i gave the same speech last week

do i really need this
lets see the side effects are nausea,vomiting, diarrhea
(that would be good since i have to have the black snake
this week),
weight loss(need to loose 5-10 lbs), dizziness(know what
thats like as i have recurrent vertigo), weakness, trouble sleeping
(every one that knows me knows that may be a good side
effect as i have probably fallen asleep on all of them in the past)
tremors, or muscle cramps(that dont sound good)

then they list the bad stuff that im sure the lawyers made them
write-seizures, dark emesis, irregular heart beat(had that one
time 25 years ago and did not like it at all), trouble peeing
(thats bad),
severe abdominal pain, and severe allergic reaction

then it says but most people do fine without major side effects-
well why did they not just write that and end it there

i mean do i really need this
if i had not had that neuropsychological testing a year ago
that was normal when i applied for long term care insurance
if i had not signed up for that study on alzheimers and had
that neuropsychological exam done that was abnormal
then i would not sitting here writing about taking that dam
pill but would have been writing about something more
pleasant like the holidays

well when you put the total picture together-family history,
subtle things noted at work, abnormal test after a normal
one last year and the chance that all this could take off
sometime in the near future and the fact this pill will slow it
down for awhile
then i have decided to take it and never look back on the
decisions i made this week

now maybe i can find my shovel i misplaced

here goes  had my coffee and my bagel and now the
journey begins

the organicgreen doctor

3 comments:

  1. It's good to know that even doctors contemplate whether or not they want to take a pill. Every time we get a prescription -especially for my boys related to Aspergers -I think, "Do I really want to give this to him? Will it help? Will he gain weight? Will it make him tired or sleepy? Are they subscribing it just to make the drug companies richer? When it comes to many meds...I get the feeling that is a guessing game on behalf of the prescriber.

    I wish you the best on your journey.

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  2. if its generic its not being pitched by drug companies or their reps
    read the side effects but you cant tell which ones are important
    with experience overtime i usually knew the most common ones
    no pill usually totally fixes the problem
    diet exercise healthy living helps with a lot of diseases including the one i have

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  3. Just thinking of you. Greg is working on his "black smake" prep. Hope yours goes well.
    You and Joann are in my prayers daily.
    Missing you,
    Donna

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