If you were a doctor,…

By Joel Thurtell

If you were a doctor and knew that a certain drug would do your patients no good and might even harm them, would you go ahead and prescribe it anyway?

What if the drug that does no good would actually cause seizures, hallucinations, vomiting, dizziness, muscle cramps, weight loss and more?

This is actually happening when it comes to prescribing for patients suffering from the memory- and reason-debilitating disease known as Alzheimer’s.

According to drugs.com, common side-effects of Aricept (generic name donepezil) are:

Would you, if you were a doctor and knew about these side-effects and also knew this drug would do your patients no good, would you prescribe such a drug?

And yet many people are taking Aricept. It can only be prescribed by doctors.

Same is true of Exelon, generic name rivastigmine, which has “common” side-effects similar to Aricept’s:

Diarrhea; dizziness; drowsiness; headache; increased sweating; loss of appetite; nausea; stomach upset or pain; tiredness; vomiting; weakness; weight loss.

Exelon’s “severe” side-effects also are similar to Aricept:

Severe allergic reactions (rash; hives; itching; difficulty breathing; tightness in the chest; swelling of the mouth, face, lips, or tongue); anxiety; bloody or black, tarry stools; chest pain; decreased urination; depression; fainting; fever; new or worsening tremor or uncontrolled muscle movements; new or worsening trouble walking; seizures; severe or persistent dizziness, tiredness, or weakness; slow or irregular heartbeat.

Another drug used to “combat” Alzheimer’s is Namenda.

“Common” side-effects of Namenda:

Doctors prescribe these drugs.

Doctors know — or SHOULD know — that there is no treatment for Alzheimer’s.

It is worth repeating: Doctors know that no drug will stop or even slow the progress of Alzheimer’s.

The pharm companies know it.

That hasn’t stopped them from marketing drugs they claim will retard the disease.

Seen the TV ads?

One doctor told me she knows these drugs are no good, but it’s hard to say “no” to relatives of Alzheimer’s patients who want to think there is some magic bullet.

Nothing known to man will stop this disease. This was the finding of a National Institutes of Health study last spring.

Yet patients with Alzheimer’s desperately want help.

They await if not a cure, then at least something that will indeed slow the decay of their minds.

The bitter truth is that, as The New York Times headlined in a seminal August 28, 2010 article, “Years Later, No Magic Bullet for Alzheimer’s Disease.”

It is worth repeating: NO MAGIC BULLET.

The word is not getting through to the medical community.

Doctors still prescribe so-called cholinesterase inhibitors like Aricept, Namenda and Exelon, even though there is no evidence they do any good.

Insurance companies still pay for the drugs, useless though they are.

It is a bitter, bitter blow to those who take the drugs believing they will help, then learning months or years into the treatment that they have been paying for and ingesting substances that are worse than useless.

The side-effects can be powerful.

Before his death, my father was taking Aricept. Nobody told us about the “abnormal dreams” that can be side-effects of Aricept. When dad thought he was having nocturnal conversations with a well-dressed man whose remarks alarmed him, dad started to go for one of the loaded handguns he kept in his night stand.

We removed the guns.

But we didn’t understand where those dreams were coming from.

You will hear — as we heard — that Alzheimer’s disease causes hallucinations.

Is it the disease, or the treatment, that causes such dreams?

Hallucinations, dreams, whatever you call them, they can be very powerful. They can inspire behavior that otherwise would not happen.

Behavior provoked by drugs that can’t do good, but can do plenty of mischief.

I’ll write more about Alzheimer drug side-effects in a future column.

But let me ask: If you were a doctor, would you have patients take this kind of medicine?

Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com