After recently reading an article that asks you to consider new options for hot flashes, I am reminded of a TV show called “Are you smarter than a fifth grader?” While the show proves most people are not that is not to say we should feel bad, for true knowledge comes with age.

While we may have long forgotten inconsequential facts, such as types of clouds, everyone knows it is our common sense that makes us smarter than any fifth grader, right?

But as I consider common sense, I can’t help but wonder if some people perhaps have lost theirs. I think this is what some doctors and pharmaceutical companies are hoping. For if we lack common sense, we are more inclined to blindly take the drugs that they insist we need.

Our common sense should have us asking about the drug’s side effects and how if any will it really change our life for the better? But how often do we ask ourselves these questions?

So why am I questioning common sense?  Well, according to the Journal Of American Medical Association, estrogen works for menopause symptoms, but because of estrogens adverse effects they suggest other options such as antidepressants ( Prozac and Paxil ) and anti-seizure medication (Gabapentin).

Finally the public has realized the risks they are taking by using HRT (hormone replacement therapy) so they have to con us to take another one of their drugs.

Here is where it gets good, their studies shown that people taking gabapentin had an average of 2 less hot flashes a day and women taking antidepressants had on average 1.5 hot flashes fewer.

They even admit in the article this doesn’t seem like much but woman who suffer a lot, this makes a world of difference. Yes, I do see how having 15 hot flashes in a day is MUCH BETTER than 13 /1/2. Does this logic really defy all common sense or is it just me?

Perhaps many women, not wanting to question their doctor’s advice simply think that this is their only alternative. Maybe, they are simply unaware of the drug’s risks or can it be that they truly lack the common sense that should make them smarter than a fifth grader? What really boggles my brain is why anyone would take these drugs to eliminate one and one-half of their hot flashes per day, that I will never understand.

If this just happens to be how you think, then maybe, just maybe, you should not try out for “Are you smarter than a fifth grader.” for you obviously have lost your common sense along with any trivial facts left circulating in your brain.

For the rest of you who see this as crazy as I do……….thank goodness, we may not be smarter than fifth graders but we still have more common sense than the pharmaceutical companies give us credit for.

It seems clear that the only thing drug companies are interested in is to sell more drugs, if we wise up to the adverse effects of one they simply try to con us into taking another one.