Tag Archives: allergies

Prescription Drug Abuse

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Protecting Loved Ones from Prescription Drug Abuse or Overdoses Starts at Home

Vol. 14 Issue 8

Prescription drug abuse may be one of the most hidden types of substance abuse ever. There’s no liquor bottles in the trash, no needles hidden in a box under the bed, no little baggie of green leaves or white powder in the backpack. In fact, everything may look normal at first glance.

Maybe the first sign of a problem is that you lift a prescription bottle of your own or a family member’s and it seems a little light. You look inside and note that the supply is lower than you thought and make a note to get a refill soon. Maybe the prescription is hydrocodone (Vicodin or Lortab) left over from some dental work or minor surgery or maybe you have a bottle of over-the-counter cough medicine from a child’s illness last winter.

According to national surveys, more than 75 percent of teenage prescription drug abusers say they got those drugs from friends or family. It’s easy enough to slip into the bathroom and lift a few pills from someone’s bottle of OxyContin, Xanax or Valium. And even if your children would never do this (or you don’t have children), visitors or workmen to your house or your aging mother’s house could check the medicine cabinet while using the bathroom or working on the house. Once someone has your medication (or perhaps the medication of a family member you are caring for) then it’s up for grabs.

About 9 percent of high school seniors admit to abusing a narcotic drug other than heroin – mostly prescription opiates and opioids like methadone, OxyContin, Percocet, or Vicodin. And approximately 40 percent of these students feel that it is “easy” or “very easy” to get their hands on these drugs.

The answer is very simple: lock prescriptions away. It can be as easy as stopping by an office supply store and getting a small locking box. Place your medications in the box, keep it in a drawer and keep the keys well hidden elsewhere. This will prevent casual theft. Or you can locate a locking medicine cabinet easily enough. They are available online for $100 to $200 plus an installation charge if you have a handyman mount it in the bathroom.

And if you have prescriptions that are no longer needed, don’t hold onto them. Rather than flushing them down the toilet, which adds them to the water supply, check with local pharmacies to see if they will dispose of them for you or contact your local waste service company and ask about hazardous waste disposal.

A very little bit of work on your part can help keep these drugs out of circulation in your community.

Source: Testimony of Stephen J. Pasierf, Abuse of Prescription and Over the Counter Drug, March 1, 2008, http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/About/NewsReleases/International_Narcotics
Source: Monitoring the Future Study, 2009, http://monitoringthefuture.org/data/09data/fig09_10.pdf
Source: Proper Disposal of Prescription Drugs, October 2009, http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/pdf/prescrip_disposal.pdf

Antibiotics linked to Allergies and Asthma

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ANTIBIOTICS LINKED TO DEVELOPMENT OF ALLERGIES AND ASTHMA

Vol. 7 Issue 127

A study conducted at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit has linked antibiotics to allergies and asthma in children. Children who received antibiotics within their first six months were at an increased risk of developing asthma and allergies by the age of seven.

448 children were followed from birth to seven years; the children were divided by gender into even groups.

Researchers collected data about all prescribed oral antibiotics; blood tests that measures immunoglobulin E (the antibody that causes allergies); skin reaction tests that determines if a person is hypersensitive to an allergen, and on all clinical visits. Researchers also collected environmental samples from the homes of the children.

The data was collected before birth and then at the first four birthdays. Each child was then evaluated at 6 to 7-years-old by a certified allergist.

Forty-nine percent of the children had received antibiotics by the age of six-months; the most commonly prescribed antibiotic was penicillin. Other finding included:

* Children who received antibiotics by six months old were 1.5 times more likely to develop allergies by age seven than children who did not receive antibiotics, and 2.5 times more likely to develop asthma.
* Children who lived with less than two pets by the age of six months given at least one antibiotic were 1.7 times more likely to develop allergies and three times more likely to develop asthma.
* Children whose mothers had a history of allergies were twice as likely to develop allergies. Those who were breast-fed more than four months, and received antibiotics by six months were three times as likely to develop allergies; the risk of asthma was not influenced by breast feeding and antibiotics.

According to Christine Cole Johnson, PhD, lead author of the study and senior epidemiologist for Henry Ford’s Department of Biostatistics and Research Epidemiology, “…we need to be more prudent in prescribing antibiotics for children at such an early age. In the past, many of them were prescribed unnecessarily, especially for viral infections like colds and the flu when the antibiotics would have no effect anyway.”

SOURCE: Henry Ford Health System press release, Science Daily, October 1, 2003; WCA News,
www.wcanews.com, October 2003; www.newscientist.com, September 30, 2003; BBC News, news.bbc.co.uk.