Are You Tired of Feeling Sick and Tired?

        It Could Be the Side Effects of Your Medications

Jay came to our office because of chronic headaches and lower back pain. He felt that his current array of doctors—an internist, a cardiologist, a rheumatologist, and a psychiatrist—just weren’t making him well. A lawyer in his mid-50s, Jay had gone for a routine physical and was found to have high cholesterol and mildly elevated blood pressure, two conditions that had led to a veritable cascade of medications.

“My internist put me on Lipitor to lower my cholesterol and hydrochlorothiazide to lower my blood pressure. He sent me to a cardiologist, who wasn’t really happy with the results, so he switched me from hydrochlorothiazide to Inderal.

“Then my lower back and neck started aching even with minimal exercise, so my internist sent me to a rheumatologist, and she put me on Celebrex. That worked for a while, but eventually it seemed to wear off. I had already been having trouble sleeping, and now the pain kept me up at night, so I went back to my internist for some help, and he gave me Ambien.

“Meanwhile, I was trying to lose weight, but none of my diets were working. I couldn’t lose a pound, even though I had given up all my favorite foods. In fact, I was always hungry, and in the past year I’ve gained at least twenty pounds. I’m tired all the time.

“The whole thing has gotten me so discouraged that my doctor sent me to a psychiatrist. He put me on Prozac, which might have helped a little. But most of the time, I feel pretty lousy.”

Jay looked at me, trying to seem cheerful, but I could see how disheartened he really was. “Doctor,” he said finally, “I’m only fifty-five! Isn’t that supposed to be the prime of life? Some days, it seems like my life might as well be over.”

Sadly, Jay’s situation is all too common. Many patients who first come to our office in their 50s or beyond are on two or more medications, as are an increasing number of younger people. Often, as in Jay’s case, the negative effects of the first medication lead to the prescription of a second drug . . . whose effects incite the need for a third drug . . . causing the prescription of a fourth drug. On and on it goes, with everyone gaining weight, feeling tired, and getting more and more discouraged.

Even if you’re only taking one medication, it might be making you feel fatigued and gain weight. Many common prescription medications create weight gain, brain fog, memory problems, fatigue, joint pain, sleep problems, and other symptoms that we incorrectly associate with the inevitable process of aging, rather than with a very reversible loss of function.

Why Do Doctors Overmedicate?

As a chiropractor, I see it every day—patients like Jay are overmedicated, often with disastrous results. Some problems develop slowly and gradually, such as the Prozac, Lipitor, or many other drugs that led to Jay’s weight gain. Other issues are more dramatic, such as when statins create muscle pains or brain fog—occasionally to such a degree that patients are wrongly diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

A great deal of the problem comes from the way that physicians are trained. Medical school teaches them much that is valuable, but it does not teach them to look at underlying causes, or to focus on such basic solutions as exercise, spinal stress, postural awareness and proper sleep. Instead, they’re taught to identify symptoms—and then to treat each symptom with its own matching drug.

This is what happened to Jay. Although I saw his problems as all resulting from two main underlying causes— spinal stress resulting from poor posture and lack of exercise and a diet causing inflammation—his conventional doctors saw many individual diagnoses: heart disease, arthritis, insomnia, depression. Instead of getting a holistic view, Jay was treated by several different specialists who didn’t even talk to one another.

Rather, each prescribed the drugs that his or her specialty demanded, as though Jay’s body could be carved up into three separate, independent domains: cardiovascular, rheumatological, and nervous systems.

But Jay didn’t have three independent systems—he had one single body. And whenever he took a medication—no matter what it had been prescribed for—his entire body took the hit. For example, the Lipitor Jay took for his cholesterol caused his muscles to ache. The Celebrex he took to alleviate his muscle aches promoted his weight gain.

Meanwhile, the Lipitor and the Ambien, prescribed to help Jay sleep through the muscle pain, contributed to his depression . . . and the Prozac he took in response caused him to gain more weight. The extra weight created more of the inflammation that was the main underlying issue, and it also raised his blood pressure yet again, further stressing his cardiovascular system.

Each medication ultimately made Jay’s body not better, but worse. And in spite of all these medications, the underlying issue, spinal subluxation and nervous system stress was aggravating his inflammation.

Alternatives to Meds

Jay was upset when he realized that each of his medications were just treating his symptoms and not addressing the underlying cause of his problem. To make matters worse, each medication had created an additional set of problems. So he was relieved to hear that he could actually stop all his drugs and we could offer him another solution.

As part of his new way of life, Jay began to walk briskly at least 30 minutes a day, as well as do his daily spinal therapeutic exercise and regular chiropractic spinal adjustments. He also began to meditate regularly. And in addition to he took the nutritional supplements we recommended, including a multivitamin, fish oil, vitamin D, and probiotics.

Within the first two weeks of his Initial Intensive Chiropractic health care program, Jay began to feel better. His lower back and neck pains went away, his mood improved, and he was sleeping better. These improvements continued into the Supportive phase of his care. After about two months, Jay felt better than he had in a long, long time. No more depression, no more insomnia, no more back pains and low energy.

The sad thing is that Jay didn’t have to be on any medication in the first place. His spiral into suffering—into feeling sick and tired and fat—was drug induced. Instead of multiple drugs, many treating a side effect of the others, all he needed was to correct his spinal subluxations, improve his posture, diet and start a daily exercise program.

As a chiropractor, I am happy to use any means at my disposal to help make my patients feel well and function better but the vast majority of the time, improved spinal care and hygiene, diet and cardiovascular exercise are truly the best medicine.