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Medications and Your Brain

You may think the only drugs that could affect your brain are ones you've heard about on the news, drugs like cocaine and LSD.Think again. Chances are that your medicine cabinet is full of mind-altering drugs, he kind that you pick up not from the street-corner pusher, but from the corner pharmacy.

Time to "just say no" to these drugs, too?

That question is not so easy to answer. True, many medications, both prescription and over-the-counter, can play with your mind. the can make you drowsy, confused, nervous, or depressed. In some cases, they can cause paranoid thinking, irrational behavior, even hallucinations. The flip side, of course, is that these same medications also relive your sniffles, muffle that cough, or numb that throbbing in your head. Wouldn't it be great to find an alternative source of relief from these problems, one without side effects?

Many medications warrant consideration of a "benefit-risk ratio," says Roger Maickel, Ph. D., professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Purdue University's School of Pharmacy and Pharmacal Sciences. The benefit of taking an allergy tablet, for example, is that you'll feel more comfortable not having to constantly wipe your runny nose. The risk is that your alertness may conk out, because antihistamines can make you drowsy.

Medication Mad:
You've undoubtedly suffered dry mouth, fatigue, or perhaps a queasy stomach after taking a certain drug. But have you ever heard voices ordering you to jump out of a fourth floor window?

A doctor in England reports in the British Medical Journal the case of a 50-year-old man who not only heard just that, he obeyed. He was given a simplest tablet of the painkiller buprenorphine following an operation to remove hemorrhoids. That was all it took.

The man, with no history whatsoever of mental illness, began to hear voices instructing him to perform various chores on the ward. A hospital official asked him into her office to discuss his bizarre behavior. That's when he jumped -- four floors to the ground.

Although seriously injured as a result of the fall, the man lived to tell the tale.

Bizarre Behavior:
Consider the case of a 49-year-old Canadian man, a mathematical scientist, who was taking the drug digoxin following a coronary bypass operation. As he reports in a letter to the medical journal Lancet he found himself unable to work out even the simplest
algebraic expressions. The drug had seriously dulled his mental capacities, although he didn't initially realize it was the drug. Fortunately, he was able to discontinue the medication before he would have had to apply for long-term disability.

Or consider the case of three neuroscientists who thought they could beat jet lag if each belted down a couple of drinks with a sleeping hill (Halcion) during a flight. As reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, they awoke several hours later in a hotel room in a foreign country -- with no idea whatsoever how they got there. They couldn't remember landing, clearing customs, exchanging money, or checking into the hotel. Just think all of this could have remedied with Melatonin.

In another case, a man in his early fifties had serious trouble with his job at the phone company. Working with color-coded wires, he found himself continually fouling up his connections. The problem, however, was not carelessness. According to Dr. Maickel, it was the cardiac glycoside tablets the man was taking for his heart condition. They made everything he saw have a yellow tinge, so that white wires looked yellow, red wires looked orange, and blue wires seemed green.

Why Drugs Do Funny Things:
You may be wondering why, if medications sometimes have these strange effects on the brain, the manufacturers don't just fix them. Well, they would if they could. But there are a few complications involved. Foremost, "there is no one drug that has only one action," says Dr. Maickel.

Take aspirin, for instance. It will help relive a headache. It can lower your temperature if you have a fever. It relives arthritis pain. It can also keep the blood from clotting. But let's say you want the aspirin today only for the headache. Does that mean it will no longer have any of these other effects? Of course not. Also please remember that we have our own "herbal aspirin", APS II.

Another problem with drugs is that individuals react to them differently. No two people (except perhaps identical twins), weight the same, have the same metabolic rate, and produce the same amounts of hormones, says Angele C. D'Angelo, a registered pharmacist who is assistant dean and associate professor at St. John's University College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions, Jamaica, New York.

What can you do to make certain the drugs you're taking do what they're suppose to - and no more? How do you make rational decisions about what drugs to take? Here's some advice from the experts.

Take only your own medicine. "Don't take some pill because Aunt Elvira once had the same problem that you do now, and it worked for her. You should NEVER take anyone else's prescription," says Arthur H. Kibbe, Ph.D., director of scientific affairs at the American Pharmaceutical Association. Now aren't we all thankful with herbs, that we don't have to worry about this. We can muscle test and see if it is good for sure, and we can adjust the dosage.

Be careful about mixing medications. Combining certain drugs can augment the effects of one or both drugs, negate their effectiveness, or create entirely new problems. If you're taking any kind of medicine whatsoever, let both your physician and pharmacist know before taking another, says Dr. Kibbe.

This brings to mind a story of my dear ole' grandmother. I loved her dearly, but I must tell you she was a "junkie." Grandma had about seven doctors. None knew of the others and they all prescribed medicines for her. Grandma would go to different pharmacies, bring all the nose drops home, dump them all in a big bowl, stir them together and then dispense in separate bottles. Thus they were all the same now, but her theory was "If one is good for me, then they have to be great all mixed together." Now, I will admit that Grandma died at age 73, which isn't bad, but nose drops aren't nearly as serious as if says it were—Valium, Prozac, Zanax, etc. You get the picture.

Here is a story that I just had shared with me tonight. The gentleman behind me is the local dog catcher. He relayed to me that he is epileptic and interested in an herbal supplementation. He was telling me that he had gone for 10 years with no seizures and suffered a heat stroke. Immediately the doctors decided it was a seizure and placed him on both Phenobarb and Dilatin. They counter-acted each other and he started having seizures again. He went off the Phenobarb but still has them. He honestly is convinced that the mis-diagnosis and then the attack of the Phenobarb and Dilatin mixture has stimulated his system to be prone to epileptic seizure activity once again.

Beware of what you wash your pills down with. Now isn't this the big one. Not all drugs are in medications. The caffeine in coffee and the alcohol in beer are drugs, and they can mix with certain prescription or over-the-counter medications to make for big problems. Now this holds true for foods also. Did you know if you are taking Depakote you should avoid vanilla pudding? We all know that milk products make Tetracycline less effective. None of these problems with herbs!

Follow instructions religiously. If your doctor's prescription or the instructions on the box say "three times a day," that DOESN'T mean one pill at noon, and the other two at dinnertime. It means one roughly every 8 hours. Now the freedom we have with herbs, is that we can adjust the scheduling and the dosages. I've recently determined that High Potency Grapine works better if they are taken at one time with breakfast, rather than split throughout the day. We know that Calcium at bedtime works great as a relaxant and sleep aid as well. Why not adjust these dosages to suit our systems better?

Drugs That Tamper With Your Mind:
Don't expect that if you take any of the drugs below you will necessarily experience altered behavior or start swinging from chandeliers. Just be aware that unexpected side effects -- including abnormal thinking patterns -- are possible in some instances. These responses are fairly infrequent, but they can be quite alarming and potentially dangerous to you or others, says James W. Long, M.D., author of The Essential Guide to Prescription Drugs (where this information originally appeared).

Drugs Reported to Impair Concentration and/or Memory:
Antihistamines Isoniazid Primidone
Antiparkinsonism drugs Scopolamine Benzodiazepines
Monoamine Oxidase (MAO) Phenytoin
inhibitor drugs

Drugs Reported to Cause Confusion, Delirium, or Disorientation:
Acetazolamide Cortisone-like Drugs Levodopa
Aminophylline Cycloserine Meprobamate
Antidepressants Digitalis Para-aminosalicylic Acid
Antihistamines Digitoxin Phenelyzine
Atropinelike drugs Disulfiram Phenothiazines
Barbiturates Digoxin Phenytoin
Benzodiazepines Ethchlorvynol Piperazine
Bromides Ethinamate Primidone
Carbamazepine Fenfluramine Propranolol
Chloroquine Glutethimide Reserpine
Cimetidine Isoniazid Scopolamine

Drugs Reported to Cause Paranoid Thinking:
Bromides Diphenhydramine Isoniazid
Cortisone-like drugs Disulfiram Levodopa

Drugs Reported to Cause Schizophrenic-like Behavior:
Amphetamines Fenfluramine Phenylpropanolamine
Ephedrine Phenmetrazine

Drugs Reported to Cause Maniclike Behavior:
Antidepressants Levodopa
Cortisone-like drugs Monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitor drugs

Listed next you will find some mood-altering side effects of drugs that have been observed often enough to establish recognizable patterns. These effects, of course, are quite unpredictable and will vary enormously from person to person.

Drugs Reported to Cause Nervousness (Anxiety & Irritability):
Amantadine Ephedrine Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitor
Amphetaminelike drugs Epinephrine (MAO) drugs
(appetite suppressants) Isoproterenol Nylidrin
Antihistamines Levodopa Oral contraceptives
Caffeine Liothyronine (in Theophylline
Chlorphenesin excessive dose) Methylphenidate
Thyroid (in excess) Cortisone-like Drugs Methysergide
Thyroxine (in excess)

Drugs Reported to Cause Emotional Depression:
Amantadine Estrogens Methysergide
Amphetamine (on withdraw) Ethionamide Metoprolol
Benzodiazepines Fenfluramine (on w/d) Oral contraceptives
Carbamazepine Fluphenazine Phenylbutazone
Chloramphenicol Guanethidine Procainamide
Cortisone-like Drugs Haloperidol Progesterones
Cycloserine Indomethacin Propranolol
Digitalis Isoniazid Reserpine
Digitoxin Levodopa Sulfonamides
Digoxin Methsuximide Vitamin D (in excess)
Diphenoxylate Methyldopa

Drugs Reported to Cause Euphoria:
Amantadine Codeine MAO inhibitor drugs
Aminophylline Cortisone-like Drugs
Amphetamines Diethylpropion Morphine
Antihistamines (some) Diphenoxylate Pargyline
Antispasmodics, synthetic Ethosuximide Pentazocine
Aspirin Flurazepam Phenmetrazine
Barbiturates Haloperidol Propoxyphene
Benzphetamine Levodopa Scopalamine
Clorazepate Methysergide Tybamate

Drugs Reported to Cause Excitement:
Acetazolamide Cycloserine Levodopa
Amantadine Diethylpropion Meperidine & MAO
Amphetaminelike Drugs Digitalis inhibitor drugs
Antidepressants Ephedrine Methyldopa & MAO
Antihistamines Epinephrine inhibitor drugs
Atropine-like Drugs Ethinamate (parad-methyprylon (paradoxical)
Barbiturates (paradoxical) oxical response) Nalidixic Acid
Benzodiazepines (paradoxical) Ethionamide Orphendrine
Cortisone-like Drugs Glutethimide (parad- Quinine
Isoniazid oxical response) Isoproterenol
Scopolamine

One final note on "Medications and Your Brain." Have you noticed how many people have allergic reactions to pharmaceutical prescriptions? Have you ever noticed all the pretty colors they come in? Think about this, these are artificial colors, people have allergies to artificial colors. The pharmaceutical companies are getting smarter about all of this. You will now find that many prescriptions are starting to look the same. Most of them are white, there is a reason, they are finally leaving out the colors. Now lets home that some day they get smart and learn to leave out things like: Propylene glycol which is in Ritalin, titanium dioxide, etc. These are things they use to de-ice jet planes and make white paint brighter. No wonder we have reactions to these things.

Well folks, the choice is yours. You see, I sell Nature's Sunshine Products, because I know what is in them. Herbs! The whole herb, and nothing but the herb. If you buy Kelp, you get Kelp. You don't get Kelp, propylene glycol, maltodextrin, and fillers.

IMPORTANT: The information in this handout is for educational purposes only. It is not intended for diagnosing and treating diseases. If you have a serious illness, we recommend you consult a competent health practitioner before beginning a nutritional program.

You must understand that this program does not replace any additional professional counseling with any other doctor that you may wish to consult. This is an objective program which can be coordinated with any advice, treatments or prescriptions recommended by your regular physician; this program is not intended to be in any conflict whatsoever with any other recommendations or treatment by other doctors or practitioners who are licensed by State and Federal laws, and also, this decision to follow or reject this program is left to your own discretion.

For more information please contact your local Nature's Sunshine Products independent distributor:
-Lisa Canon