How to Lower Your Drug Costs By Staying Healthy, Naturally

By Eva R. Marienchild

On a cold, blustery March weekday afternoon, last year, the local Walgreen's was deserted—except for the pharmacy, which was doing a brisk business.

Every folding chair was taken, and people were standing, waiting for their prescriptions to be filled. A few were picking up standard OTC‘s like Tylenol, Ex-Lax, and various weight control products. ("I'm taking something for my sinus infection," said a woman, 32. It's $15 a pill!")

A few blocks west, a health food store was noticeably empty of customers. “People would rather pop a pill than take care of their health!” said a customer.

This was a well-populated town in Florida, but it might have been any town in America, where the consensus is that Americans have developed a dependency on prescription drugs and OTC's.

Beating Our Addictions to Drugs

Prescription drugs--when over-the-counter drugs, or OTC's, as they’re called, won’t do--are still the preferred antidote to sickness. When patients can afford them, that is.

"I have a prescription for high blood pressure, but my Medicare doesn't pay for it and neither does my supplemental insurance," says one shopper, at the Northern Florida Walgreen‘s. "So I just don't fill it."

In the mainstream medical world, a patient sees a physician with a complaint and, more often than not, is given a "script" or prescription. And thus begins the process that circulates trillions of dollars between the patient, the insurance company--if the patient is fortunate enough to have coverage--and the pharmaceutical companies, with their extraordinarily high mark-ups.

This reliance on drugs is costing us economically, in more ways than one.

Prescriptions are causing bankruptcies. A recent Reuter’s headline held that "half of bankruptcies are tied to medical bills."

Alternative Studies Abound

A steady stream of studies advise us that diet and lifestyle cause common ailments, and that nutrition, exercise and a healthy way of life reverse and prevent most serious illnesses.

As an example, the over-the-counter dietary supplement glucosamine sulfate appears to slow the progression of osteoarthritis, a study released at a meeting of the American College of Rheumatology, declared. 'For the first time,” said a spokesperson, “we have shown that a compound may be able at least to slow down the progression of osteoarthritis.”

Glucosamine sulfate is often paired with the equally effective chondroitin sulfate. "I take 400 mgs of chondroitin every day, and it helps my arthritis," says a 40-year old man on a fixed income.

"I used to take Vioxx, and stopped taking it," said Audrey, from North Carolina. "Then I took Celebrex, and I stopped taking it." (Both drugs came under attack when negative side effects were discovered.) "Now I take chondroitin sulfate, and it works just as well as those drugs. I would rather put something natural in my body."

These days, non-mainstream treatments such as "nutra-ceuticals", chiropractic, acupuncture, massage, dietetics, and homeopathic care are widely accepted as is an ever-increasing awareness of our ability to help ourselves.

According to the Glucosamine and Arthritis Information Center, chondroitin sulfate is a molecule that draws in precious fluid and protects cartilage and stops it from breaking down, inhibiting certain ‘cartilage chewing’ enzymes.

Aging Healthfully Magazine recently ran a pro-alternative health article, "The Ancient Intuition of Nutrition" by Majid Ali, MD, and Health Day News printed: "Rheumatoid Arthritis Attacks the Heart", which stresses that what affects one part of the body affects many other parts as well. This is a major underpinning of the alternative health movement, which argues for a complete mind-body approach to illness.

Even the New York Times, that staunch supporter of status quo, has recently had health columnist Jane E. Brody writing: "Warnings about dietary risks have also yielded results in the reduction of heart deaths, with millions of Americans drastically reducing their consumption of artery-damaging saturated fats and cholesterol."

Widely touted nutritional and herbal remedies include good old apple cider vinegar (for everything from overweight to poor digestion) and St. John’s Wort for its antidepressant abilities.

According to natural health proponents it's all too clear that poor lifestyle habits are the cause of arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure and many other banes of modern day living. Whereas ten years ago it was hard to have "natural living" taken seriously, these days taking care of one's health prophylactically, or before you get sick, sans medication, is widely accepted.

Recent reports point to proof that all these diseases and more can be cured by cleaning up your food intake, exercising, de-stressing and ceasing toxic habits like smoking, alcohol, coffee and empty-calorie foods.

Even if you’ve done all you can to clean up your act, sometimes there’s no getting around your having to take costly prescriptions. But there is still hope for your pocket!

If You Have To Take Medicine

If you're taking drugs--and sick and tired of paying through the nose--follow these pointers to keep your medications from making you sicker than you already are:

1. Ask for non-brand specific: Don't assume that the doctor would write you a generic brand script if he or she could. He or she may not think to offer. Besides, pharmaceutical sales reps make mega bucks from convincing physicians that one brand—theirs--is better than another, and the cost comes out of your pocket.

2. Get free samples: Have you ever walked into the back rooms of a physician’s office? These areas are usually overstocked with samples. Again, the doctor may just forget to ask if you have insurance that covers the high cost of OTC's.

3. Take prophylactic measures, to prevent a recurrence. Read up on alternative health information. Go to the library, surf the web. Rediscover what your folks and grandparents knew about remedies. "Back then", an apple a day and naturally healthful living kept the doctor away. Today's studies show that what worked then, works now.

And finally, because insurance is such a large part of many people's lives as they age, bone up on health insurance realities.

According to Health Insurance In-Depth LLC, we should learn about terms like "Medigap", which covers what Medicare doesn't, and long-term health insurance.

But the bottom line in good health is still this: help your body take care of itself intelligently, and naturally, for as long as you can.

© Doityourself.com 2006