Besides my mother already saying she not taking meds given to her for various reasons depression, unable to sleep and hallucinating. My sister has decided it's probably better if she doesn't take meds since one of the side effects is hallucinating. I'm telling her why evil bother being in hospice care if she's not going to even try what they prescribe to help my mother. She might or not have those side effects, but we won't know til she takes them. They both need my mom to be on some thing to calm her do and help her sleep. She gets up tired and depressed plus hurts all over. My sister blood pressure is sky high from being up and down all night with her and of course tired, too.
I am not sure this will truly help convince a person to not be so afraid of “possible” side effects but….decades ago my mother would participate in the final rounds of some drug testing. The last one she did was the final human testing trials for the shingles vaccine. Anyway, while doing the testing she had to write down and list absolutely every single “symptom” and physical and psychological sensation and feeling she had and felt, every day while in the testing period. Regardless of why she was feeling a symptom. So if after having received the testing vaccine she ate too much and felt bloated and had a hard time sleeping she had to write that down. Even though she knew it was because of the large meal she had and definitely not caused by the vaccination. All symptoms had to be logged and reported to the clinic that was doing the testing. If weeks later she suddenly had something occur medically she had to advise them again even if it had nothing to do with the tested vaccine. After the study was ended the clinic took all the reported “side effects” and had to list them as possible side effects from the medication just in case…all that to say that the pharmaceutical companies have to list any symptom a tester experienced after taking the tested vaccine as a possible side effect even if only one person out of 1000 experienced it and even if it was unlikely to have anything to do with the medication. They need to cover their butts just in case.
I hope this made sense and I hope that your mother can get the medications that her doctor feels she needs to feel as good and healthy as possible. Her doctor knows his patient and what side effects they may experience with any med and when prescribed the benefit of the medication outweighs the risk of any unlikely side effect. Plus most side effects are mild and minor and go away once the medication is safely (safely being a key word here) stopped, changed or modified. Even Tylenol has side effects if you look it up.
best of luck to you.
What MTL1974 responded about how side effects make it onto a drug label is absolutely true. I worked around the med-tech sector for almost 40 years. Yes, the pharma companies have to list *everything*, even stuff like menstrual cramps and "change of eye color" (from an obviously mentally unstable clinical study participant).
Maybe your Mom would consider CBD gummies? I've no personal experience with those but many on this forum have used them with success.
Wishing you success in helping your Mom get comfort and peace.