Thank The Doctor Who Cuts Your Medicines Down

When you visit a doctor, you are obviously wanting him to prescribe something for your condition. But many a times the doctor may decide to cut down on your previous medicines rather than prescribing a new one. He may do this for many reasons. Let us see. 

Be glad

First up, be glad your doctor did that.
Pharma companies lure the doctors to prescribe more and more medicines to the patient. In such an environment, if someone suggests to cut down on medications, be thankful to such a doctor. It means the following things –

• He really cares for you.
• He is not very money minded.
• He believes in your immune power more than medicine power.
• He knows that medicines are just tools to cure diseases. Food, exercise etc natural ways are the best way of healing.

Reasons

Why a doctor would cut down medicines: 

• Because you are recovering quick.
• You already are using a medicine which is required for your current condition.
• The alternative herbal supplement that you’re taking is quite sufficient for your current new symptom.
• The new disease that you’re suffering from is due to a side effect of combination of previous two medicines. So, if you stop them, your current symptoms will be relieved.
• The current medicine that the doctor would prescribe is a lot safer and yet powerful than the previous two medicines that you were taking, so he might delete the previous two and add just one new.
• The doctor believes that if you exercise for 10 minutes a day, that is more than sufficient for you to lose weight, than popping a weight loss pill.
• The doctor feels that applying a calming hair oil would be sufficient to induce sleep rather than taking sleeping pills.

So, these are a few things that you can imagine, when your doc removes some medicines from your list. But when in doubt, ask the doctor openly, why you do not need the medicines. A good doctor will always answer your query with a smile.

But do not be in a perception that medicine heals you. It is your body strength, mind power and God’s strength that heals. Medicines are mere tools. 🙂

Related:
Give your body a chance to heal on its own
9 patient mistakes to avoid

Q: How many rasayanas/plants can I consume each day without taking the risk of weakening my body/enzymatic antioxydant system/immune system? When I asked MAPI, ten years ago, they said four rasayanas.

I’ve just read an article in a French magazine on the danger of taking too many antioxidants and I would like you to help me sort it out.

I wonder whether taking 20 + it is not too much. But in the past I was reassured by the fact that Dr  Braverman in New-York can prescribe 50 pills a day and even more (as much as necessary!!!).

Answer: 
I firmly believe in lesser the medicines / herbals, the better. One product / medicine might have multiple ingredients – Chyawanprash or Amrit Kalash, Brahma Rasayana etc. But I usually advice against too many herbal products at one time. The purpose of poly-herbal combination itself is to avoid taking many herbal remedies, so that all the required ingredients are readily available in one nutshell. Hence, be it for the purpose of Rasayana or any treatment, I would not recommend a combination of more than 10 herbs / medicines.   (these can be, for example 10 poly herbal combinations).

Dr Krishnamurthy’s opinion:

Today’s prescriptions appear strange and even scary with a list of so many medicines, sometimes 12-15 or even more! People are so accustomed to this that, when I write just 2 – 3 medicines, they give a look of suspicion to me 🙂 Patients do have wrong thinking that the doctor has to write one or two drugs for each of their complaints or diseases. Physicians are also trained to write such multiple drugs or combinations as per the persuasion of the patients or their party. Otherwise the physicians too write multiple drugs so as to hit the complaint by any of their drugs regarding which they are not very clear/sure. In addition few of the commission gaining physicians (!) write the drugs for their earning sake or to gain the gifts and offers.

Any medicinal system in its true sense never advises multiple drugs for a patient at a time; because ultimate effect of the drug over the patient (body and mind) cannot be assumed by such haphazard combinations.

The science is giving proper and clear instruction to proceed with minimum drugs and for minimum days too. Even though overloading the drugs or increased frequencies of the medicaments may give instant and immediate effect, it may harm in the long run. Many a times, it is fatal or cause toxic effects.

Ayurvedic drugs are also not exception for this. To cite an example in this regard I want to quote an incident which happened in my clinical practice very recently.

A patient with the history of chronic cough (Kshayaja kasa) approached me with his big file of about 16-20 pages/prescriptions which he took medicine from a physician in the course of about 6-7 months. I was stunned to find the number of prescribed medicines as there were 10-12 medicines (Ayurvedic medicines) each day in spite of which he was not cured from his complaints. There were Kashayams, ghees, arishthas, lehyas, choornas and even tablets…… Patient was disgusted towards ayurvedic medicines as the medicines themselves were the meals and breakfast for the patient…..!

I prescribed a lehya formulation and asked him to take it in the dose of 20 gram three times a day followed with a tablet for chewing for 8-10 times. The patient found unhappy as those prescribed medicines were enjoyed by him quite long back itself without any effect (along with several other medicines).

However I had convinced about my simple two prescriptions and asked him to take it for 14 days.

After a period of 7-8 days patient approached me quite happily informing about the significant effect of the minimum medicines…..However I advised him to take it for some more time and later on they were withdrawn and a new combination was prescribed and ultimately he was free from the complaints and disease as well.

In fact my simple drugs have not done any wonders…..instead the multiple drugs what the earlier physician had prescribed made the prescription a blunder!

Formulation of proper combination of ingredients and its appropriate dose, timings, medium (water, honey, milk etc) and strict diet will manage most of the illness conditions with minimum drugs.
Consult Dr MS Krishnamurthy MD (Ayu), PhD

Number of Ayurvedic Medicines

What is the ideal number of Ayurvedic medicines in a prescription? How much is too much? 
Answer by Dr JV Hebbar: 
There are many Ayurvedic doctors who would prescribe 8 – 10 Ayurvedic medicines. The number of medicines depends on the strength and chronicity of the disease.
If the disease is strong, if the patient has symptoms related to multiple organs and systems, then usually the list of prescribed medicine will be plenty.

On an ideal scenario, if all the factors are kept constant, then 
lesser number of medicines, in higher doses is better than big number of medicines in small doses. Because, 
1. In Ayurveda, one medicine acts on many diseases 
Most of the Ayurvedic medicines are poly-herbal by design. It is done so as to target multiple organs at a time.

For example, Ashwagandharishta, a famous nervine, muscle strength improving, stress relieving Ayurvedic tonic is used for the treatment of 
Epilepsy, vertigo, hemorrhoids, weak digestion, arthritis etc. 

Sanjivani vati, an Ayurvedic tablet is used for the treatment of snake bite poisoning, weak digestion and chronic fever. 

Chandraprabha Vati is used in urinary tract infection, liver and spleen disorders, allergic skin diseases etc. 

2. Prescription of Ancient masters:
Probably the ancient Ayurvedic masters were prescribing only 1 – 3 medicines, usually, 1 or 2 among them would be the main medicine and other one as co-drink. 

For example, Vettumaran Gulika with a co-drink – Amritarishta for the management of fever. 

It is almost unseen in any ancient Ayurvedic textbooks, wherein a combination of 5+ medicines are prescribed together. 
3. Easy patient compliance 
Lesser the number of medicines, easier for the patient to remember the timing and more the compliance. If there are 10 medicines with 5 different timings to take them, it may create a lot of hassle to the patient, especially in elders and in children. 


4. Easy to catch side effects and do adjustments. 
If the patient develops side effects, then it is easy for the doctor to point out the side effect to the particular medicine and do the adjustments.
But if there are numerous medicines in the prescription list, it is impossible to point out the medicine causing the side effect.