To be honest this blog made me think a lot, I struggled to come up with an example from my life. The one that came to my mind multiple times was my sister and her struggle with Tremors at the age of 15. All through her life she has struggled with very unsteady hands. She often times would struggle to carry her lunch tray in middle school and spilled it multiple times. She also experienced many people getting mad at her and telling her to sit still and stop shaking her hands, little did they know.. she couldn't. After it began to affect her daily life my parents decided to bring her to the doctors. It was then that they prescribed her with two different medications that would help with her shaking. It was shortly after that we started to recognize a difference in her mood. My mom called the doctor and he told my mom to have my sister stop one of her medications because it is known to cause depression and suicidal thoughts. She stoped the medication and was only taking the one but wasn't help the tremors and much so she stopped both. Recently she just went back because with playing college sports she needs the tremors to stop for game time. The doctor started her on the meds that she was one earlier in life but started her on a much lower dose. It is crazy what a difference it made, it helps stop the tremors and it isn't causing the depression. This whole situation has been very eye opening for me as I will be starting pharmacy in the fall. It has been very interesting to see my sisters situation play out and they different medications prescribed to her and how they have affected her life.
When thinking about Pinker and Lewontin I struggle because I would agree with Pinker that tremors was in my sisters genes and that she didn't have any control over that. But when it comes to the depression, I would take Lewontin's take on it and blame it on the environment, I believe that if my sister wouldn't have ever taken the medication she never would have suffered from the depression. So each part of my sisters situation I would agree with Pinker and Lewontin.
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Alecia-
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post. Firstly, I too struggled with thinking of ideas in my life that I could use for my article. I think every single one of us probably has an uncountable number of examples that could apply, but the hard part is analyzing ourselves in a way to find them. I'm glad that someone else also found it difficult. Furthermore, the combination of Pinker and Lewontin is something that I think a lot of people could agree with. When working on my own post, I also found myself at ties agreeing with Pink and at times Lewontin. Lewontin would also probably agree that the tremors are from her genes and she couldn't chose that, but Pinker, like you said, would say that every aspect of her condition came from her genes. Which you and I might not agree with.
Hi Alecia,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your takes on Pinker and Lewontin – I think there’s probably a good chance that genetics are responsible for your sister’s tremors, and that her medications brought her depression. I've had friends who've taken medications that had bad side effects like depression, and it can be an awful experience to have to choose between being affected by your sickness or disorder, and the side effects your medication might cause. I’m sorry to hear about your sister but I’m glad starting her at a lower dose made that much of a difference. You must have an incredible perspective for the experience as someone who wants to study pharmacology!