Is 1 In 500 Really A 'very Small Number Of People'?

[sandyRoe]

"Drugs used to treat seizures increase the risk of suicidal thoughts or behavior. LYRICA may cause suicidal thoughts or actions in a very small number of people, about 1 in 500."
The above is from a web page giving information on a drug.

[emmie]

i have found many meds give me bad side effects, most notably co codamol

[Sqad]

Read about the side effects of Aspirin.

http://www.drugs.com/sfx/aspirin-side-effects.html

[RATTER15]

My Daughter takes it, it has helped reduce her seizures numbers from many seizures a day to a couple times a week. No serious side affects from it.

[Eve]

I take it for fibromyalgia to damp down pain responses. When I started getting really bad shooting pains in my limbs as a side effect of methotrexate I take for rheumatoid arthritis I was told to double it that evening then triple it a couple of days after.

I doubled it and started getting suicidal thoughts but, although I was just prescribed it by a rheumatology registrar without being told anything about it, I had read up on it a lot myself so I knew it was a potential side effect.

It was very strange, I just kept seeing ways to kill myself everywhere, knives, the oven, the bath... I was rational enough to attribute it to the drugs and just went to bed to sleep through it.

I then dropped down to 3 tablets (1.5 x original dose) for a few days then, rather tentatively, went up to 2. That went ok but have never dared going up further.

I did think of what could happen for people who weren't aware of the potential side effects or couldn't rationalise.

But it's a rare side effect and the benefit of taking it for me outweighed the side effects I read about. Similar the potential significant weight gain - I piled on weight twice, when starting then when it was increased, same as when I started mirtazapine (I wasn't told of the potential effects but I read up) and steroids. The benefit for me has outweighed it.

Many side effects are listed as precautionary and I imagine defensively to try to avoid litigation. I like to be informed but I take little notice of the rafts of potential side effects listed unless they effect me badly enough that it outweighs the benefit of taking them.

[joggerjayne]

A number can be both big and small.

And something can have the quality go both big, and small.

According to Plato, it has to be considered in context.

A mouse is small, in the context of an elephant, but big in the context of an ant.

An elephant is big, in the context of a mouse, but small in the context of a mountain.

So 1/500 is big in the context of exposing patients to a risk, to which most of us dinit haveti be exposed.

But small in the context of side-effect free treatment for 99.8% of patients.

Particularly if they will just have suicidal "thoughts", rather than automatically jumping off the first high building they encounter.