Prescribing Poison: Treating My PsA Naturally

Before I step up onto my soapbox, I want to make it very clear that I am not anti-medicine. While I have made the personal choice to treat my chronic illnesses naturally and with alternative therapies, I do believe that there are some medications that truly help people. With that said, stepping onto soapbox, if medications are created with the intention of healing or improving one’s health, why are so many made with artificial dyes and flavoring?

What’s the big deal?

Artificial dyes and flavoring have no business being included in our medication. They provide NO medicinal benefits! Instead they are known to cause hyperactivity, allergic reactions, and cancer. I first became aware of the dangers from artificial coloring nine years ago. My daughter ended up in the emergency room after eating a piece of pink and purple frosted birthday cake. Her doctor later informed us that she was allergic to red dye. This diagnosis not only forced me start reading labels and stop buying foods with artificial coloring, it also impacted how I would treat her when she became ill.

A teaspoon of poison

Did you know that it is next to impossible to find a cough syrup that isn’t artificially colored or flavored? Even when I have forced our physicians to clearly write on the prescription or had them call the pharmacy to tell them that she needed a clear cough syrup, I was told time and time again by the pharmacists that they didn’t have clear cough syrups. This is ridiculous. Here is a medicine that would have helped my daughter, but she couldn’t have it because it was poisoned with ingredients that were unnecessary.

Taking action

Not being able to give my daughter many different forms of medication forced me to turn to natural alternatives. While pricier than a prescription, it was worth it because I knew I wasn’t harming her or making her worse. By becoming aware that artificial coloring was a danger to my daughter, I made the decision to protect myself and the rest of the family by not purchasing food or medication that was artificially colored. Later I began having allergic reactions to artificial flavoring. So I removed foods that contained them from my family’s diet too.

Worth the risk?

After going dye and artificial flavor free, I would occasionally allow myself something with one or the other in it. And do you know what I discovered? My inflammation and pain levels in regards to psoriatic arthritis and fibromyalgia both increased drastically. The same thing happened, but like 100 times worse, when I was prescribed a red colored cough syrup. The worst was when I had pain spike and an allergic reaction to a prescribed artificially flavored concoction that I had to drink before a medical test. I am in no way suggesting that you ditch your medication because it has dyes or artificial flavoring. Instead, speak up. If enough people demanded that these unnecessary poisons be removed from our medications, someone might listen.

It’s bad enough that people have to suffer side effects from the necessary ingredients in their medication, so why add more problems with unnecessary ones?

Stepping off of my soapbox.