22-05-2025
Don't forget to read about the side effects of the drugs you've been prescribed
For the many nowadays who must take several different pills daily it is only sensible, if a bit tedious, to check out the detailed information leaflet that accompanies them – for reasons well illustrated by the salutary experience of a Preston reader. Not far off 80, she has acquired over the years several seemingly unrelated ailments: insomnia, thinning hair, dry eyes and generalised itchiness of the skin – warranting a medley of appropriate remedies. She was thus more than interested to discover on picking up her prescription for the blood pressure lowering beta blocker propranolol that the several side effects mentioned in the leaflet included sleep disorders, thinning of the hair, dry eyes and itchy skin!
Sometimes, of course, the consequences of those 'hidden' adverse effects can potentially be most serious, as befell (or very nearly) a previously fit and active woman in her nineties – a keen reader and movie goer, brandy connoisseur and formidable member of her local bridge club. 'We realised something must be seriously amiss' her granddaughter writes 'when she started missing out on her weekly bridge game and no longer asked for her brandy'.
Numerous medical consultations and investigations followed, whose results suggesting her uncharacteristic malaise might be due to an under active thyroid or low salt levels proved to be red herrings. She was eventually persuaded to seek a second opinion from a wise old physician who rather than arranging for her to have yet more tests advised she stop the medicines she was taking to control her irregular heartbeat and bladder troubles. Within a fortnight she was back at the bridge table.
'I was left pondering how things might have ended up so much worse,' her granddaughter comments 'In her miserable exhausted state my granny was on track to have a fall and fracture her hip – then she would have lost her much prized independence'. The moral of this tale is obvious enough. When symptoms remain unexplained it is imperative to consider the culprit might be one or more of the medicines being taken. There is little harm in temporarily discontinuing them in anticipation this might result, as here in a prompt and miraculous recovery.
The changing reality of acne
That bane of adolescence, acne vulgaris, has in recent times changed its spots (as it were) persisting for increasing numbers into their twenties and beyond. This has considerable implications for the continuing efficacy of that mainstream of treatment, antibiotics. These, whether applied topically or taken orally, inhibit the proliferation of the species of bacteria whose flourishing in the skin's oily sebaceous glands gives rise to those characteristically disfiguring pustular nodules.
They certainly work very well but the need to take them long term necessarily predisposes to the emergence of antibiotic resistant strains. Hence the need for alternative treatment 'strategies', a couple of which have recently been shown to be gratifyingly effective.
The first is a face mask incorporating a Light Emitting Diode (LED) device that generates blue and/or red light at wavelengths known to be toxic to the bacteria in the sebaceous glands. A review published last month confirms that exposure at home for fifteen minutes once or twice daily markedly reduces the number and severity of acne lesions with 'minimal adverse effects'.
Next, the surge of the androgen sex hormones at the onset of puberty is a major factor in initiating and perpetuating acne. Logically then blocking its action with the drug spironolactone – usually prescribed as a diuretic but which also has 'antiandrogen' properties should lead to a distinct improvement. As indeed it does often resulting in 'complete clearance' observes skin specialist Dr Deirdre Buckley writing in the British Medical Journal – though as it also counters the effects of the male sex hormone testosterone its use is confined to women.
