The positive side effects are usually just the effects.
And the ones that aren’t are usually called “off-label”. ;)
I mean, usually the side effects have qualifiers like „Common: mild headaches“ „Very Rare: become a vessel for satan to roam the earth and sow chaos“. Wouldn’t it indeed be nice to have this for the positive effects too?
Normally if there are postive effects from a drug, they get studied further and re-marketed as such. If I remember correctly, Viagra was originally a medicine for heart conditions.
and it’s used to manage pulmonary hypertension in infants.
Or at least not legally required to be listed to avoid liability.
Once I was prescribed low-dose antipsychotics to help me fall asleep. They made me energetic, productive, I actually started enjoying life. Then my dr said it wasn’t supposed to happen so cut them off.
I mean, what if the better quality sleep was causing those effects? That does seem unfortunate you had to stop using something making you feel better. I wonder if there was a different, more dangerous side effect they were worried about.
“euphoria” was among possible side effects. I guess the worry was it was getting me high.
Oh fuck that. I would get a second opinion. At least now you know to underplay it. “I think it’s working, yes. Sleeping better and feeling a little better, no side effects that are bothersome, this one seems good, thanks.”
Oh no, they shouldn’t make you feel too good!
deleted by creator
Sometimes antidepressants can unmask bipolar disorder and cause manic episodes but I’ve never heard of anything similar with antipsychotics. In fact they’re often used as sedatives as OP alluded to.
Sometimes antidepressants can unmask bipolar disorder and cause manic episodes
Unless mania or hypomania was present previously in a patient, this would be more about the drug’s effects than revealing a pre-existing condition.
I’d find a new doctor and tell them what was working for you
uh thats stupid? what even was the logic?
The underlying reason is that someone who has a dramatic shift to either extreme often comes with negative behaviors. Bipolar mania for example could result in blowing through money or seeking pleasure outside a relationship and a bunch of other stuff with negative outcomes.
I would hope their decision making was more nuanced than basic correlation.
I am not satisfied with that answer. You got bipolar mania from an increase in happiness, which doesn’t sit right with me. And he was prescribed antipsychotics, which are treatment for mania. It seems to me to be a case of an unexperienced doctor ceasing treatment because he was afraid of an unexpected result.
Doctors are the last people who care about you. They have procedures they memorized and their job is to fill out forms and push you along the system.
Because when they do it generally becomes one of the advertised effects. Lots of drugs were originally for something else but were later found to be useful for other things.
Viagra was a heart medication during trials, until they realized the heart benefits were minimal compared to the raging boners.
Actual answer is: this does happen, but then that becomes the reason to prescribe it.
Ozempic was a diabetes medication until the weight loss and addiction effects were observed.
Finasteride was for your prostate then it also became hair loss medication
Viagra was originally meant to treat hypertension.
Oh, there are quite some. Just from the top of my heaf: Viagra originally was just a heart medication. Metformin, a diabetes 2 medication, is strongly suspected of having other positive side effects, like generally prolonging life. There recently was an article about a new Alzheimer medication which would be quick to the market as such because it is already a certified medication against something else.
I lost a bit of weight when I went on ADHD meds
Speed is fucking awesome, it makes me feel like a productive citizen.
Why are all these dishes in the sink ? That’s crazy! Let me clean this counter up ,it’ll only take 11 minutes then Im going to pay all my bills on time. Wow that was easy , now I won’t worry about all that crap and I’ll probably sleep like a baby tonight. I’m going to read a book for a little while then go to sleep
And here i am rawdogging the slog like a chump.
There is the question if this is caused directly by the medication, or if this is something caused by you eating better because ADHD is treated.
Yeah, could be. I eat to deal with boredom - probably a kind of ‘stimming’
Finasteride was designed to treat prostate cancer but it helps with male pattern baldness.
4% of finasteride users can’t get it up.
I think part of it is also that occasional positive side effects are not something drug companies can advertise. They’re legally obligated to talk about the negative ones.
But are they legally not allowed to talk about positive side effects?
They want to keep those under wraps so that they can repackage the drug, label it specifically for those effects, and mark it up another 5000%.
Nope, just “tar” like stool and heart palpitations
Same with tirzepatide was used for a long time on diabetes 2 patients, but they realized it affected their hunger positively so it is now used as a weight loss drug.
Cannabis is fantastic for some specific gut problems. Also some types of pain. Also nausea.
My pain doc was delighted when she found out I had all three. She said “go get stoned, never come back”
But gives you a drug addiction…
That is not how addiction works. If you would like to learn, go talk to a doctor.
GLP-1 drugs were originally developed for diabetes. A side effect was weight loss.
Most drugs with fun side effects get marketed for the fun side effect.
Heroin was developed as a painkiller and cough remedy.
Nowadays it’s only sold for the fun side effects.
Probably 3/4 of the people I know on GP1s are either reporting mental health/addiction benefits, or are taking it exclusively for that reason. Helped me quit weed, helping a friend of mine quit vaping right now. Shuts off my gut-wrenching anxiety. I hate jumping on bandwagons but it’s a bit of a miracle drug, hopefully it doesn’t cause your DNA to turn inside out after 10 years or something.
My (now ex-) wife developed diverticulitis after a few months of mounjaro… Apparently that’s not uncommon…
Viagra was not originally made for what it’s mostly known for these days. Its effects on the male reproductive organ were a positive side effect.
Was here to say this. When ever they find out some unexpected benefit of a drug, they often invent a disorder and then offer up the treatment.
Things like erectile dysfunction are not really a disorder. It’s normal for men to find it more difficult to get and maintain an erection as they exit their 20s. And it will keep reducing.
Imagine if 50 year old men still walked around like 15 year old boys. My gawd. The world couldn’t survive.
Other drugs with invented dysfunctions.
Male pattern baldness. Again natural and normal for men.
Eye lash thickness. Yes there is a prescription drug to treat your thin eye lashes.
There is a prescription sex drug for women. And here is the best part. It just makes women relaxed and sleepy. Yeah … so think about that.
Our society is fucked.
Natural changes as part of development being labeled as things that need treated.Treat those wrinkles.
Treat that hair loss.
Treat those thin eye lashes
Treat that flat ass syndrome
Aging sucks though.
I mean the body pain sucks. The loss of energy. Muscle tone.
But wrinkles ? Hair loss?
Our capitalistic culture decided it needed people to pay for vanity comforts. Have made it so people are depressed about natural changes that aren’t health related.
Makeup and cosmetic companies used to say you had to stay youthful and pretty or your husband would leave you for his young secretary. Now they tell you, you need lip filler and Botox at 25 "for yourself ". So you can feel good about yourself.
Bitch, please.
Propaganda to first make you feel like shit then offer you a solution that cost money.
And now we have women with swollen faces and lips everywhere, like some platypus fetish, and hair transplants look like shit once the rest of the hair thins out.
Side effect of the side effect of Viagra is blindness.
thinking with the wrong head?
Sometimes they do. Viagra was originally a heart medication that they figured out did something else.
Botox was for eye muscle disorders, now it’s used cosmetically, for migraines, and a bunch of other diseases.
Apparently 20% of drugs are prescribed off-label. It’s kind of an extension of “what do you call alternative medicine that works?”
Wait, migraines? Are you able to give me (what would technically legally be non-medical) information on that? Migraines run in my family and every family that comes into contact with my little brother. Aside from the botulism poisoning method, how does that work?
It’s actually a labeled use nowadays. Just Google it on a burner phone (once advertised think you have migraines you’ll see nothing but migraine ads for months)
I get quarterly botox injections from my neurologist for my migraines. It’s 20+ little injections in my brow, jaw, neck, and shoulders. Before insurance would allow it, we had to try all other available treatments/medications, including a monthly at-home injection you give yourself. For me, at least, it’s been way better than the earlier treatments. I used to have 2-4 migraines per week at a pain around a 5 or 6 with a couple a year that would hurt more like an 8 or 9. Now I get 0-2 per week, usually no worse than a 3 on pain. It’s pretty common to go a few weeks without any, then just get one a week in the last month before my next injection.
Results vary a lot, probably because there are a lot of potential causes and even how we experience our migraines can vary so significantly. Efficacy can fade with time, too. But for me, at least, it’s held out for several years, and worked better than I or my doctor even expected.
Botox is the toxin in botulism that kills.
It’s right there in the name!
Viagra also alleviates PMS. Not approved for it, even though it’s prescribed for recreation to men.
I mean a fair amount of my friends had endometriosis (not sure if that’s a geographic oddity or something worse) and now I’m curious if that could have (whole lot of hysterectomies in the gang) helped.
I mean if it would that’s just that much more infuriating…
But I’m not that knowledgeable on the difference between the impact of a cyst and the mechanism that gives cramps. My ex had endo. Miserable experience. I wish your friends the best in managing it.
Weird, my ex had endo as well… Didn’t want sex for a long time, and I was doing my best to be understanding and not pester her… Then she unexpectedly ended up in the ER with extreme pain and heavy bleeding, bad enough she was on morphine and needed a blood transfusion… It took months, but I eventually found out she had cheated on me with our son’s best friend’s dad, and that apparently triggered the event. Hence why she’s now my ex.
Fuck that sucks. Relatable though.
However, the trial ended prematurely as investigators did not meet their sample size, so the funding was discontinued.
How? Why? This kind of study should be trivially easy to complete. The medication is already on the market, generics are super cheap, administration is super simple and non-invasive and I’d guess there are plenty of women suffering from PMS. That sounds like the kind of study that a grad student could pull off on a DIY budget.
According to Google, generics are ~€0.50 per dose and they administered a single dose per patient. Let’s say placebos cost the same as the generics, then the cost for these 25 participants was less than €15.
My only wild and reaching guess, beyond simple cruelty and hatred, is marketing was afraid of associating the drug with periods because “men would get grossed out” and potentially impact that share of the market.
Probably something like that… Sucks.
And it’s kinda stupid too. PMS is well known to not be conductive to female libido, and female libido is conductive to Viagra sales. So why not sell it to women too (=more sales) which might increase the occasions to sell it to men as well.
IDK if i have a partner i want them to be comfortable. Idk whether there’s just a lot of incels in powerful places or men have historically just hated the women they’re with. Either way that’s one reason I don’t identify as a man.
I wonder if actually helpful PMS medication would cannibalize e.g. pain medication sales. Generic viagra is super cheap, and in the study they used just one dose. So if that’s the actual dosage required in the end, that could cost the pharmaceuticals industry money.
Similar to with vas occlusive contraception. It’s really easy, simple, dirt cheap, lasts long, is reversible, non-hormonal, no side effects male contraception. It’s basically the perfect contraception and it’s the only reversible long-term contraception that men can use.
But it was dropped because it would pretty much annihilate the female contraceptive industry, which makes a huge amount of money each year.
Quote from the Wiki article on RISUG, the form of Vas-occlusive contraception that came closest to getting to market:
Despite this, pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to lose market share of a thriving global market for female contraceptives and condoms which bring billions of dollars of revenue each year. Initially, RISUG attracted some interest from pharmaceutical companies. However, considering that RISUG is an inexpensive, one-time procedure, manufacturers retracted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_inhibition_of_sperm_under_guidance
Yeah i generally assume decisions like these are profit/hate driven. If you can make a market case, even mildly convincing that profits will be hit, it’s going to be researched enough to get copyright and bury as long as possible.
Just can’t imagine being one of those researchers(if they knew/weren’t duped), board members or marketing fucks going home to someone who thinks they’re loved, watching them writhe in pain, and think, “yeah I’m gonna be so rich!”
TIL 😀
Administered vaginally… “ooh I’m a bit crampy today! Time to pop a pussy pill”
Vaginal suppositories is common enough for eatrogen
Viagra will kill the shit out of you if you have a heart attack and the emergency room gives you nitroglycerin.
Well. Maybe you don’t die, but it won’t have the intended effect.
So the ones with real “feel good” side effects are the ones that people have addiction problems with, and instead of indirectly giving pleasure, they give it directly. Some people enjoy while they use them and move on with life, others become obsessed with that pleasure and throw everything else away in the pusuit of it.
Viagra was originally for heart complications right?
Blood pressure, I think.
Pulmonary hypertension
So like, my best MD I ever had, he said “you’re got symptoms A, B, and C, right? Well doctors like to treat it with G, but pill H has main effect B and side effects A and C. Only problem is doctors hate prescribing it. Let’s try it!”
I miss that guy.
Medicine used to have those kind of side effects. It was called cocaine.
Or laudanum
Then it would be the main purpose of the drug
Not necessarily… Several of the new weight loss drugs are primarily something else, and the weight loss is an “off-label” use. My (now ex-) wife was prescribed mounjaro for her type 2 diabetes, and proceeded to lose a considerable amount of weight. She wanted me to do the same, but insurance only covers the primary use, I wasn’t/am not diabetic, so I’d have to pay out of pocket, and that shit is expensive.
Well that’s more the insurance companies finding ways to get around paying bills, isn’t it?
It is definitely that, but the justification for it is it’s not the intended use of the drug.
Making everything taste like chocolate cake for a week would be a great way to make sure you never want to eat chocolate cake again.
