One man's poison is another man's medicine!

If you take a glance at the medicine cabinets in most homes, medications commonly found in there would range from skin irritation cream to eye gel, anti-histamines to cough syrups, and paracetamols to high blood pressure tablets.

If you were to take a closer look at some of those medications, it is not difficult to see the word "POISON" printed in red and enclosed in a box with red outline, in a few languages, as shown in the pictures above. These are usually the medications prescribed by doctors or healthcare professionals.

Recently, I met a man aged around 30, with very bad Psoriasis which is a skin disease that causes scaling and swelling. He told me that his doctor prescribed him a certain medication to control his medical condition. It was only six months later when he asked the doctor if there was any side effect, the doctor said yes, the adverse effect is that a certain organ in the body might be damaged. He was in rude shock and asked the doctor why he did not tell him earlier.

It is commonly known that most of the medications come with side effects or adverse reactions. Even Panadol commonly prescribed for pain and fever, might trigger allergic reactions and must be taken with special precautions especially for those who have renal and hepatic failure.

A relative of mine had been regularly prescribed pain killers for her knee pain problem, and years later, she ran into very bad gastric troubles. I know of someone who has been on anti-depressants for several years and she suffers from frequent dizzy spells. Her doctor said that the medication does cause postural imbalance.



We always heard, "one man's meat is another man's poison", but now, it is "one man's poison is another man's medicine!". Be aware that the next time you pop in those pills or tablets, you might be popping poison into your body.

That is why there is a growing awareness of the need to detoxify the body, i.e. to remove the toxins and poisons from the body. But, nothing beats preventive healthcare. Alternative treatments, TCMs and natural foods are gaining wider public acceptance now.