On The Lighter Side

Anyone who wants to understand the problems with Israel and the Arabs should read my 3-part posting starting with Another Legacy of British Colonialism: Israel and Palestine. You can add to that mess India and Pakistan and the recent terroism there. The colonial empires have left the people once occupied by them in great poverty which as I said is a breeding ground for terrorism. And it would not matter if Israel existed. So I would like to move to a lighter subject; "restless leg syndrome" or RLS.

When I first saw the ads for the drug that stops RLS I thought that this was a joke. I never heard of RLS before. Lo and behold, I had a test for sleep apnea recently. That test involves your entire body being connected to dozens of sensors while you are trying to sleep through the night. This was done at a sleep therapy center. The good news was that I did not have sleep apnea. The bad news was that I had nightime RLS.

The doctor recommended that I take the very drug that I saw on TV to stop the RLS so that I could get a good night's sleep. I tried the drug for 3 days and the side effects were so bad that I stopped. I found out that this drug called Requip is used at higher doses to treat Parkinsons disease. The lower doses for RLS however involve side effects that make the cure worse than the disease. So I decided to sleep with 3 pound leg weights on each ankle and the problem was solved for me.

The drug companies are convincing us and the doctors that these diseases really exist. And many of these commercials have quite a profound affect on those of us who are inundated with them. One of Lewis Black's comedy specials had a bit about this. Black said that he was on an airplane going from LA to NYC and he read a Time Magazine cover story about diabetes. He said that by the time he landed, "he got diabetes." This was a funny line that has a lot of truth to it.

The drug companies have been going overboard with commercials about erectile dysfunction or ED. They are now claiming that 50% of men under 40 have ED and that a much higher percentage of men over 40 have ED. Well for all you men who did not have ED before these commercials, you can suspect that the epidemic of ED is caused by the commercials themselves. Any man who sees a commercial about ED is reminded about a syndrome that he would rather not hear about. Unfortunately, hearing about it everyday puts the thought into men that they will get the dreaded ED.

Now I know that one cannot get diabetes by reading an article about it. But, ED has lots of psycholgical causes and hearing about it everyday is something that really works for these drug companies. That is why these diseases that the drug companies are advertising about have such a wonderful return for them, especially the diseases that have psychological ramifications such as ED.

I am sure that both Lewis Black and I can agree that commercials for drug companies should be banned. And for those of you who do have RLS, try leg weights or restraints. They work just as well without the side effects.