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- You’re an older man.
- You’re having difficulty urinating because of an enlarged prostate (benign prostatic hyperplasia, BPH).
- Your doctor prescribes Flomax (tamsulosin) or Proscar (finasteride).
- Your urination improves but your doctor notices your blood glucose going up.
- Flomax and Proscar can increase blood glucose.
- BPH drugs cause dizziness, lethargy, and weakness, thwarting your attempts to bring down blood glucose. Your doctor eventually prescribes metformin.
- BPH drugs increase blood lipids (and). Your doctor prescribes a statin.
- BPH drugs are linked to depression and increase the risk for dementia. Your doctor prescribes an antidepressant.
- Statins increase insulin resistance and risk for diabetes (and). They add to your dizziness and weakness. Statins also cause weight gain. You’re now taking 2 diabetes medications.
- BPH drugs, diabetes drugs, and statins disturb sleep. You may now be taking a sleeping pill.
- Metformin leads to vitamin B12 deficiency which, if someone has diabetes, can present as peripheral neuropathy. There’s a drug for that.
- You’re also now supplementing with vitamin B12, or you should be if you’re taking metformin.
In no time at all you’re taking several medications – indefinitely. The first domino was a drug for BPH.
Fanatic Cook 
I know of multiple stories like this. Particularly my own husband. Here is his domino effect:
1. You’re a middle aged man.
2. Your doctor diagnoses you with hyperparathyroidism based on lab results. He prescribes SENSIPAR. [Remember that word.] Your insurance pays for two months of the drug, and based on your lab results, it works remarkably well for you. The drug works to lower the parathyroid hormone levels circulating in your body.
3. But your insurance suddenly refuses to continue to cover part of the drug costs UNLESS you are on dialysis. You must pay $700/month to continue to take it. Your insurance continues to refuse to cover part of the drug costs UNLESS you are on dialysis.
3. Your doctor tells you that your only option is a parathyroidectomy. Otherwise you will end up with severe osteoporosis, kidney failure, amongst other horrors.
4. You have the subtotal parathyroidectomy surgery and the doctor sends you home with an order to return to the hospital if you feel bad.
5. A week later you’re at work and you feel like you’re dying and you are having muscle spasms and your jaw is locking up. Doctor says go to ER. ER doc says your calcium has plummeted and puts you on IV calcium, then sends you home with tons of prescription calcium supplements.
6. You take the supplements but feel poorly all the time. Two months later you are lethargic, urinating constantly, have extreme bone pain, and feel nauseous. At the ER they say your calcium is dangerously high. You are put on IV flush to lower the calcium, then sent home with orders to chew Tums for extra calcium and stop taking the high dose supplements. You find out later from your medical records that you were having TIAs (mini strokes) during this time and that the high calcium damaged your kidneys.
7. For the next two years you struggle with your calcium levels, feeling terrible all the time, and also with emotional problems that take a toll on your wife and young daughter, nearly causing you to lose your family.
8. Two years after the parathyroidectomy, you have a massive stroke. (1/3 of people who have TIAs/mini strokes end up having a major stroke in the future.) You lose the use of the right side of your body. But after intense therapy you are able to walk with a cane, though your right arm remains paralyzed. You refuse speech therapy and your wife and daughter help you learn to talk again, but with a noticeable speech deficit.
9. The doctors prescribe you tons of medications – blood thinners, statins, and others.
10. Two years after the first massive stroke you have a cerebellar stroke, which is rare. You are just off balance. At the hospital the doctors say there’s not much they can do, so they keep you overnight and put you on an IV with high doses of blood thinner and also aspirin to prevent another stroke.
11. The doctors state that the blood thinner/aspirin combo causes a brain bleed and a clot near your spinal cord. A craniectomy is necessary to save your life. They cut open the back of your skull and discard that piece of skull because you probably won’t live long anyway.
12. In ICU your kidneys shut down. You are put on dialysis.
13. After two months in the hospital your wife sets up your living room like a hospital room and takes you home. You can’t walk and will be bedridden and on dialysis for the rest of your life. And you are obviously still missing a portion of your skull so she has to be careful with your head.
14. Now your remaining parathyroid glands are overactive. You refuse another parathyroidectomy, as you believe it was the domino that caused all this in the first place.
15. The dialysis doctor gives you SENSIPAR. NOW IT’S FREE, UNBELIEVABLY, BECAUSE YOU ARE ON DIALYSIS. The government is paying for it. And guess what? It still works well for you.
This is why, as a middle aged woman with genetically high cholestorol (familial hypercholesterolemia) I became a vegan and refused statins. I have lowered my total cholestorol from 278 to 160 (and still dropping) without medications. I take nothing but B12, and hope to continue that for the rest of my life. After what my husband went through with the healthcare industry (and myself and our daughter who was 8 when all this began and is now 17), I don’t want any part of it if I can help it.
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That is some story. You and your husband and daughter have been through so much.
It does seem like there is a wheel, a drug wheel, and once you’re on it, it’s hard to jump off.
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