Drug warnings a prescription for trouble

As some of you might have guessed from my weekly rants, I am a person of age. I would say that I am old, but that is not politically correct. I am a person of years? I’ll buy that.

Because I am in that category, I have undergone various forms of surgery, X-rays, MRIs, blood tests and somber conversations with medical specialists who warn that if I don’t follow their advice, I could drop dead at any time. One remarked, in the peculiar vernacular of the street, “You’ll be toast.” I’m not sure whether he was advising or threatening me.

Furthermore, I am to take, without question or hesitation, the prescriptions they recommend, the containers for which I have lined up on my desk like obedient little soldiers. I could reel off their names, but I don’t care to reveal specifics concerning my generally woeful condition.

I am, to tell the truth, glued together like an old chair.

I dislike taking pills and am quick to find reasons for not taking them. I study their attached warnings carefully, noting, for instance, that with some I am to avoid grapefruit products and prolonged periods of sunlight, and I am never, I mean never, to open, chew or crush the capsules.

I don’t care much for grapefruit and have no problem staying out of the sun, despite family requests to spend otherwise pleasant weekend days lying on the sand like a beached whale, going blind from the sun’s relentless glare.

But what really captures my attention are cautionary notations that some pills may cause dizziness or blurred vision, and I am to use caution while operating machinery or heavy equipment.

When I mentioned this to my wife, the sly Cinelli, she said, “I wouldn’t worry about it. I don’t see you using a pile driver or operating a thresher.”

“That’s not the point. Why just machinery or heavy equipment?”

“What do you want them to say?”

“Well, why not, for instance, use caution while climbing mountains. That could be dangerous too. Get dizzy, slip on the ice and down you tumble head-over-behind to a snowy death.”

“You’re worried about that? You who won’t climb a stepladder to change a light globe? I doubt that you’ll be clawing your way up the south face of Everest any time soon.”

“You forget how close I came to scaling K-2 in 1964. Had I made the attempt and had I been taking any one of my current drugs, God knows how tragically the effort might have ended.”

“Ah, yes, the K-2 caper. I can see you now, you and your drinking friends gathering equipment for the ascent: rope, climbing shoes, ice ax, sunglasses, potato chips, a box of cigars and two bottles of vodka. But then, as I recall, you drank certain of your equipment and never got out of Oakland. Whatever became of the climbing harness?”

“All right,” I said, “another example. Why not use caution while flying a jumbo jet across the Atlantic?”

“Going where?”

“Where doesn’t matter.”

“Paris probably. That’s the only destination you ever have in mind.”

“It won’t be Tierra del Fuego, that’s for sure.”

“You liked the topless beach in the South of France.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Your little red eyes glowing brightly, a line of drool . . . “

“What I’m saying is the pharmaceutical companies ought to be more inclusive in their warnings or not list them at all.”

“They’re just offering simple, declarative statements intended for guys of limited comprehension who are inclined to down their heart pills with beer and then drive their bulldozers into the side of a barn.”

I e-mailed the press office of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asking why prescription warnings only applied to using caution while operating machines or heavy equipment, adding, “Why not mountain climbing or flying a jumbo jet or sky diving or water skiing?”

I didn’t expect a reply. The FDA has bigger things on its mind like mad cow disease and killer tomatoes, so I was surprised when a press representative called and said he was working on my request.

I’m not sure why, but he eventually sent me a new warning on the use of Oxycontin, a drug described as an “opioid agonist and a Schedule H controlled substance with an abuse liability similar to morphine.” Perhaps he felt I needed it.

With it were 20 pages of information containing not only the usual alerts to the drug’s possible side effects (nausea, dizziness, dry mouth, etc.), but also the additional adverse reactions of anorexia, nervousness, insomnia, chills, confusion, anxiety, euphoria, twitching, nightmares, thought abnormalities and hiccups.

It might cure what you’ve got, but what’s left of you will be a mess.

By all means no mountain climbing, flying, bull riding, running, walking, bungee jumping, hula dancing or writing. I’m glad I don’t take the stuff. I get twitchy just thinking about it, and I already have enough abnormal thoughts to fill a book.

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almtz13@aol.com