Whatever happened to medications that cured you like penicillin? Now you might have your headache cured but?

Question

watch out for the stroke.

Answer 1

one of the biggest things now days is poly-pharmacy. in the 'old days' if someone had two conditions chances were there was meds for one of them and they would die eventually from the untreated condition. now ppl are prescribed 5 or more different meds - preventions are well as treatments. the interactions are huge. plus throw in herbal remedies that can have a massive impact on drug regimes (ppl don't realise it alot of the time - tell your doctor everything - let him decide what is medically relevant).

alcohol and other illicit drugs do long term damage and mess up so many things. plus ppl live to 90 where everything catches up to them. plus diet choices are poorer and so on. there are lots of factors - not a simple question you've asked.

Answer 2

Regarding your first question:
Older medicines such as penicillin and quinine are still commonly used to cure certain illnesses and infections, though many types of bacteria and viruses are developing resistance due to people overusing these medicines. Also newer, better medications such as Amoxicillian (sp?) can replace older types of medicine in many cases, sometimes with less side effects.

Regarding your second question:
Not sure which medication you're referring to, but I think people may be getting the idea that medicines now are more harmful and have more side effects. This is due to more research in medicines (more drug testing, etc) as well as more media coverage about medications. Also, people are living longer and have more access to medicines, so long term side effects are showing up more and more simply due to the increase in people suceptible to those side effects. Finally, today's lifestyle factors can help contribute to long term side effects such as strokes, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc. and medication just makes these risks much much worse if you're already a eating fatty diet and smoking, for example.

Answer 3

Now people are living to the age of 80 or more. Just a hundred years ago, lucky ones lived upto just 50 !