Drugs can Make you Goofy

He's on this many drugs?  Seems like it

I’ve not posted this week until now because of pressing personal obligations.  I had a birthday (68!) and I also had cataract surgery.  I’ve been celebrating and coalescencing all week (not necessarily in that order).

I’m not the only one recovering this week.  Donnie T. had a nasty bout with COVID, and claims to have conquered the virus.  Completely [cough cough] he says.  However, he was pumped with a shitload of drugs, so it could be the drugs talking.

I should know.

When I was much younger (say, 65), I had rarely taken any type of pharmaceutical for anything.  I was healthy as a mule, as the saying goes, and just as hard-headed.  Then my prostate complained loudly about the same time I was elegible to participate in Medicare’s Plan D, and I’ve been on some sort of drug(s) ever since.

I’m not taking anything terribly powerful, but during my recovery from cataract surgery I am taking three types of eye drops, and I am learning how they interact with my prostate medicine – weirdly.  Every drug seems to have some side effects, and many drugs warn of interaction risk with other drugs one might be taking. 

I got a rude awakening when I first started to take something for my prostate.  I developed a cold, and naturally reached for the decongestant.  Whooooooooo!  I had to pee like once every twenty seconds, and it hurt like crazy.  Once I recovered from THAT painful experience I read about the interactions my medicine had with pseudoephedrine or phenylephrine-based decongestants.  I’ve been careful about reading the entire write-up that comes with my drugs ever since.

But back to Trump.  All week he’s been acting erratic.  OK, that’s really nothing new, but it does seem to some that it’s ramped up, even for him.  It’s believable.  I remember when I first switched doses of my prostate medicine.  One side effect is dizziness, and I had never experienced that…until I upped the dose.  OK, NOW I get it.  When the dosage was upped again I was prepared for it to happen again (it did, but not nearly as bad). 

So are steroids causing more erratic behavior in Trump?  Most likely, especially if he hasn’t been taking a lot of drugs prior to this (I mean, besides the Adderall).  And speaking of Adderall, it has a long list of drugs that may cause unintended interactions.  So do several of the eight drugs he got when at Walter Reed: Dexamethasone, Remdesivir, Regeneron's monoclonal antibody, Zinc, Vitamin D, Famotidine, Melatonin, and Aspirin. 

It would be extremely helpful to the media and the American people if Trump and/or his doctors would level with us and tell us exactly what’s going on – when did he first test positive, what are his vitals now, etc.  He “believes” he’s not contagious, but that’s not how it works.  He claims he feels “perfect” and we all know what happened the last time he used that word to describe something.  There are few details forthcoming about his condition – we’re just supposed to believe the words of a guy who habitually lies; more than 20,000 times since becoming President.

And is pumped up on drugs?  Sure.