There is no trivial matter in medication: the more expensive and new the medicine, the better.

Don’t blindly believe in new drugs

People often say [every price counts], So to the extent of economic capacity, People like to buy things with high prices in order to buy good quality. However, the more expensive the medicine, the better. The price of a drug is determined by its research and development cost, raw material cost, process preparation process and sales links. It is not determined by the curative effect of drugs on diseases. Some new drugs, Due to the high cost of research and development, the pricing will be correspondingly high, but it is not necessarily better than the existing old drugs. For example, people are familiar with the old drug aspirin, large dose aspirin can relieve pain, reduce fever, small dose aspirin can prevent myocardial infarction, cerebral thrombosis patients thrombosis. Its price is very cheap, but its role is recognized in the world.

There are also some patients with chronic diseases, Always hope to seek immediate results from new drugs. But generally speaking, Clinically, the observation time on the actual curative effect and toxic and side effects of new drugs and newly imported drugs is not long. There needs to be a process of practical verification, It is only through large-scale clinical use that rare serious adverse reactions can be found. During the examination, Some new drugs have been eliminated because they cannot stand the test. For example, trime, a once-popular weight-loss drug (generic name: sibutramine), was found to increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases (including non-fatal myocardial infarction, non-fatal stroke, recoverable cardiac arrest, cardiovascular death, etc.) after a period of clinical use, so it was banned worldwide. Therefore, we cannot blindly believe in new drugs.

If discomfort occurs after taking the medicine, the adverse reactions of the medicine shall be considered first.

Some patients suffer from discomfort after taking certain drugs, It is considered to be a drug quality problem. Even think it is caused by the doctor prescribing the wrong medicine, And then cause medical disputes. In fact, Harmful reactions unrelated to the purpose of medication occurred under normal usage and dosage, In most cases, it is the inherent attribute of drugs, which we call adverse drug reactions, which are commonly known as [side effects]. The occurrence of such reactions does not belong to human errors and is not the basis for medical accidents, but only the basis for strengthening drug supervision and guiding people to use drugs rationally.

The adverse reactions of some drugs are difficult to predict, Especially new drugs, Due to the limited number of patients in its pre-market clinical trials, Patients suffer from a single type of disease, In most cases, special groups (such as children, pregnant women, etc.) are also excluded, so some rare and long-term adverse reactions occurring in special groups are difficult to detect and must be found after large-scale clinical use. Therefore, we should guard against adverse drug reactions, especially the adverse reactions of new drugs.

This article is taken from the book “Ji Lianmei Talk: Chinese Should Use Drugs This Way”, which is reprinted by the author’s authorized clove garden.