This is my blog and I can write whatever I want. Still, I want nothing less than to preach, one way or another. This seems like a worthy goal that is rare in today's self-help society, where seemingly every book, blog, magazine article, podcast or even tweet tells you how to think, feel and behave in order to be happier, more productive, improve your nutrition and your orgasm, or suggests that you are doing pretty much everything the wrong way and here's how to fix it. I hate that imperious tone and try to avoid it. Still, I have my little adventures and sometimes they impart lessons that might help someone, somehow.
Yesterday I went to my family doctor for a scheduled annual exam. We discussed my recent tendency towards feeling dizzy and actually fainting from time to time. "Could this be from the three blood pressure meds I take daily?" I asked. "Yes," he answered, "most medications do cause dizziness." He then proceeded to prescribe yet another medication for me, one that he believed would lower my growing anxiety about my dizziness and fainting. How odd, I thought -- another drug?
That evening I researched Lexipro and found dozens of horror stories on chat boards from people who had taken the drug and lived to tell the tale. Violent dreams, massive weight gain, nausea and vomiting, severe headaches and total loss of libido were among the most common complaints, at least for the first month or so. I thought, would I let my child take such a drug? No way. So, since my mother and father died many years ago and I became my own parent, I opted out of adding more mystery chemicals to my already taxed insides and instead committed to a healthy lifestyle stuffed with daily exercise and meditation, spiritual reading, Tai Chi practice, reasonable portions of nutritious foods, a dose of fish oil every morning and plenty of water all day long.
Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do and the experts be damned.
Yesterday I went to my family doctor for a scheduled annual exam. We discussed my recent tendency towards feeling dizzy and actually fainting from time to time. "Could this be from the three blood pressure meds I take daily?" I asked. "Yes," he answered, "most medications do cause dizziness." He then proceeded to prescribe yet another medication for me, one that he believed would lower my growing anxiety about my dizziness and fainting. How odd, I thought -- another drug?
That evening I researched Lexipro and found dozens of horror stories on chat boards from people who had taken the drug and lived to tell the tale. Violent dreams, massive weight gain, nausea and vomiting, severe headaches and total loss of libido were among the most common complaints, at least for the first month or so. I thought, would I let my child take such a drug? No way. So, since my mother and father died many years ago and I became my own parent, I opted out of adding more mystery chemicals to my already taxed insides and instead committed to a healthy lifestyle stuffed with daily exercise and meditation, spiritual reading, Tai Chi practice, reasonable portions of nutritious foods, a dose of fish oil every morning and plenty of water all day long.
Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do and the experts be damned.
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