Driving -- Medications, Focus, and Safety

The frontal lobe of the brain doesn't fully develop until you're after 16, and for males 'they' now say it's quite far after age 20!  Again, just as all people are different, all teens and young adults are as well, and we have to use our clinical reasoning and critical judgment when making decisions and recommendations. 

Having been on a bzillion pills in the past, which I just went over with the dental hygeinist today and was saying 'nope, not on that' or 'taking that just occasionally as needed now', I can say that I have come from being a really very intact teenaged driver into adulthood and then into chronic illness and all the medications that can be involved.  Not too long ago when Armour Thyroid went out of production for a while, I had to switch to something else which didn't exactly equate I don't think and I believe my thyroid was high. 

So when I see all the crash statistics, I really wonder if there aren't more incidents that could be attributed to state of mind from legally taken and legally prescribed Rx medications. 

There is MUCH to discuss which is fascinating related to driving and what all it brings up related to health and wellness for us individually as drivers and for the public safety, so thank you again, Karen, for taking the time to write here at Lumigrate.  This will be a wonderful benefit to people who know about Lumigrate and take the time if they have it to come!  

By the way, one of my cases when doing driving rehab was a young man who turned 18.  He had a diagnosis of depression and he refused to take antidepressants, and his father wouldn't let him drive as a result of not taking medication.  Luckily the father when the son turned 18 was concerned and paid for the guy to come to me.  He walked in TOTALLY in black and scared the reception team so badly they came to check on me in the conference room to be sure it was all 'cool', which it was -- he was one of the most respectful and articulate, intellilgent young men I have ever met. 

I have to say he was a teacher to me ten years ago perhaps, as he said 'they haven't done trials of those on developing brains' and said he'd rather go about dealing with his mental health issues in his own way, which included nurturing his spirit, letting energy get freed up, and I only wish I had a place to refer him to about 'balancing' and knew more about integrative medicine at that time.  And truly, he called me 'Ma'am' and was just a pleasure and didn't have a parent with him either.  It was just SO FUNNY when I went back to the main office area and the receptionists told me how concerned they were ..... and it ended up being one of the easiest young men to interact with in reality, and who made ME think about what was going on with this medication prescribing and adults going for it the way we (overall) have.  

Thanks, Karen.. Got the Rubber Side Down and trying to use all my units of traction wisely ~~ Mardy

Driving Under Influence of Rx and OTC Meds was the subject of one of the segments on Dr. Oz.  As typical with their show, they fly through several different topics and cover a LOT of information in a short time, causing him to talk so fast he mumbles and is difficult to understand so I thought 'anyone who needs to hear this is so loopy they won't be able to figure out what they're talking about, ironically' -- OLDER drivers who need information said s.l.o.w.e.r, those with other medical conditions that cause mental fogginess, and then naturally those on the medications they were talking about for cold, allergies, anxiety, HTN, and diabetes. 

So I figured it was worth taking a few notes down and writing it up here, as it was a very good segment (link provided, below, as well, to the Doctor Oz website. This is an area of growing concern as the first baby boomer will turn 65 next year.  Jake Nelson, Directo of Traffic Safety for AAA was a guest for part of the segment and also said that 70% of drivers over 55 take meds that can affect driving. 

They used the studio audience to demonstrate how many people take 'drugs' and it reminded me of an exercise I did when returning to college to become an OT an was becoming certified as a peer health alcohol counselor at Colorado State University.  We were asked to line ourselves up across the room in terms of how much or little drugs we took and naturally everyone stood over at the 'none' end of the room and were looking at me with curiosity when I went and stood most of the way to the 'many' end of the room by myself, with ALL this floor space between us.  I worked in health education at the time for the student health center so I thought of ibuprofen as a 'drug', caffeine, etc. and they didn't.  (And back in those days I was taking a LOT of both things, as well as being a social drinker of alcohol.).  

The Dr Oz audience demonstrated how many people might fall into one level or another of "Drugged Driving" by virutally everyone having taken a cold medicine, allergy medicine (such as over the counter medications), hypertension or hyperglycemia/diabetes medication, which have the undesirable side effect of making people feel fatigued and somnolent.  This basically occurs because many of them decrease the brain response time (think about how you suppress a cough -- get to the brain), decreases the brain/body response time, coordination, and muscle strength.  A side effect of many medications is drowsiness, which is another whole concern related to the 'drowsy driver'.  They demonstrated this by tossing a ball to a woman without and then with wrist weights on -- with them on she moved slower and the ball hit her.  "Funny when it's a ball, not so funny when it's a vehicle" was the moral to the demonstration. 

Anti anxiety and depression medications were also specifically mentioned.  I recall a case when I worked for the driving rehabilitation company where a woman who had a head injury and was given Prozac as part of the medication management of her medical issues had been called into the Colorado State Patrol by a concerned driver on the freeway.  The patrolman found her vehicle and pulled her over and part of her court process was to have an assessment by us.  Our testing in the clinic found her to have significant visual/motor and psycho/motor problems, likely due to her head injury NOT the medication, which she was taking as prescribed, and which was the only drug in her blood after her arrest.  She refused to participate in further work with us as she could not see that she had any problems with her driving -- basically her cognition and behaviors were impacted enough from the head injury that she wasn't able to mentally process 'the process' of working on correcting her brain injury issues (which are to a large extent 'therapizable').  I would imagine the courts suspended her license but then, realisitically, does THAT really keep people from driving when they have that kind of disability for reason in the first place?  Anyway, it was one of many very interesting cases I had in those two years of driving rehabilitation so I can only imagine how many Karen has in all her decades of it.

They referenced a 2007 NHTSA (National Highway Transportation Safety Administration) document related to drugged driving, which had a familiar looking cover as it's similar to the NHTSA document from the past that I look at whenever I walk by my box of driving resources in my 'resources area' of my garage -- I referred to it in a piece Karen and I have collaborated on here at Karen's Korner in the summer of 2010 related to the medically impaired or elderly driver.  So NHTSA is obviously a wonderful resource for people who are wanting to learn more about these topics. 

One of the complexities related to medications and driving is that taking more than one 'drug' can have combinational effects, and think of 'alcohol' as a drug.  While the labels warn about it, these are so prevailant that they are often dismissed or not respected.  "Drugs" fall into the categories of ETOH/alcohol, illegal drugs, legally obtained and properly consumed prescription, and over the counter medications.  It is 'not easily measured' like blood alcohol content, but the roadside or station testing that is performed when a driver is suspected of being under the influence when driving is very similar.  The penalties are the same.  Dr. Oz's reaction was visible and sincere I felt -- basically saying 'that seems harsh but I can see that it's necessary because it is just as much a safety issue as driving while under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs'. 

I was pleased to see their next guest was a professor of pharmacy from University of California, San Francisco and that she brought up that supplements, herbal remedies AND pharmaceuticals must be considered equally.  She reminded people to read labels and patient education materials, and to consult the most 'economical' professional available in health care, the pharmacist.  They are FREE and by law have to answer questions and give advise when asked. 

I found this really intersting because I had just gotten off the phone with a pharmacist, who I had called to check on the status of bioidentical hormones being reimbursed by the local insurance company which has the contract for the kind of insurance I have (due to being 'uninsurable' due to having fibromyalgia and not having an employer or spouse who provides insurance benefits).  We were discussing their 'busyness' currently due to administering influenza vaccines in a 'walk in clinic' style, which I'd wondered how they do that.  (It takes some training hours -- about two days, plus they have to do CPR training and haz mat training the way I would have to as well, for blood borne pathogens).  So now that pharmacies are, in MY opinion, using flu vaccines as a loss-leader to get people to start changing how the consumers think of pharmacists --  teach the pharmacists how to administer shots and the people have a few minutes 1:1 with the pharmacist and start seeing THEM as health care providers and not 'pill counters'.  Some national chains now have instant messaging 'chat' with pharmacists to ask questions as well, and I think it's a VERY interesting development and progression related to solving the gaps present in the current health care system. Naturally, I LOVE to see the use of technology and the Internet for such things in health care, as it is so very symbiotic with what we are doing with Lumigrate's development and past 18 months of history. 

The pharmacists are being stretched thin but so is everyone in health care these days.  I'm just glad to see Dr Oz's show being so verbal about pharmacists as it's something I've been loudly advising people for years as well. The YOU model on the home page of Lumigrate didn't have 'pharmacist' on it because we only included what the integrative medicine center at the time had within it's 'roof', as that was the working model and education Lumigrate was 'taking out to the Internet', but we HAD originally had pharmacy interested in being part of the center but they were purchased by Walgreens which then added compounding to one of their stores in Grand Junction proving to me they were something to watch in terms of progressive trends. 

Naturally, I like to provide the link to the Dr Oz show so it might encourage you to go to the 'source' if you're interested in more information. The link to this particular piece is: www.doctoroz.com/videos/medications-new-dui

(Their general website address is http://doctoroz.com)

I hope you found this interesting and thought-provoking and will keep it in mind when you or someone you have around you has a 'drugged driving' situation and be concerned, then ACT accordingly.  ~~ Mardy