side effects

I was innocently knitting along on my sock (more on that tomorrow!), when a commercial for medication for restless leg syndrome came on. With all the drug commercials on tv these days, I'm always listening for the long list of side effects, because some of them are quite interesting to say the least.

Well this one (Requip) had the "usual" long list of side effects, until it said to see your doctor if you start to develop unusual behaviors, such as compulsive gambling and I stopped knitting...WTF ????? Medication that makes you want to gamble? Excessively? So, I had to go online and check out this drug and get more info. It seems in addition to compulsive gambling, you can also develop other compulsive behavior, such as compulsive eating, drinking of alcohol and even compulsive shopping..... shopping? really? Uhm, ok.

The strangest drug commercial I've seen was to treat IBS or something along those lines, and the side effects they noted were pretty much the symptoms one would already have from IBS, so it makes you wonder.... how is it supposed to work??? How can they tout a drug that is supposed to tame your inner tract, but notes side effects that are the symptoms of what you are diagnosed with to begin with? It doesn' t make sense to me.

But enough about innards. Back to our regularly scheduled program on the compulsive yet safe act of knitting and blogging. :) I got some stuff to show ya tomorrow.... good night!