What if drugs all had good side effects?

I've got eye pressure that's been tending toward the high side, my eye doctor has observed. It doesn't seem to be glaucoma-ish, no family history and I've had field vision tests and pictures taken of the innards of my eye to check for optic nerve damage and whatnot. No foul signs, thank goodness. But the man wants to be safe so he put me on these eye drops to lower the pressure. And after a checkup the numbers have gone down, so everything looks all good.

But here's the thing that got me to thinking about the query that's the title of this note. When he was talking about the eye drops to me, my first concern was whether I'd still be able to wear contacts. He said yes, 15 minutes after putting the drops in I'd be fine for wearing them. Would I become extraordinarily sensitive to light? Lose my night vision? No. So what are the side effects? There's always gnarly side effects.

Your eyelashes will get thicker, and darker, and longer. Your eye color (the irises, not the whites) might darken. That's it.

That's IT?

It's the same kind of stuff the cosmetics industry has latched hold of, such as with the product Latisse(tm) as advertised with an oddly-strained-looking Brooke Shields (somehow, I never got the attraction of Brooke Shields, and I'd call myself as appreciative of a beautious woman as anyone). Of course, for folks not experiencing any eye pressure quirks, the stuff is applied externally, at the lash line. (insert icky imaginations of people using it as eye drops who have normal eye pressure, who after a few weeks have their eyeballs caving in from a loss of inner pressure...).

That news about the side effects kinda blew a small section of my mind. It's a first, in all the news I've heard about all the different kinds of medicines out there on the market: a product that doesn't come with a long list of potential side effects some of which sound worse than the ailment one wants to treat. You know the lists. Anal seepage. Suicidal ideation. Loss of sexual desire. Erectile disfunction. Heart palpitations. Stomach ulcers. Stomach cancer. Death.

Why can't more medicines be that way? What IF more medicines were that way? Can you imagine the conversation with the doctor? "To lower your cholesterol, I'm putting you on blabbedy-blah, and you may experience a side effect of shedding that 5-to-10 pounds you've been trying to get rid of. Oh, and you hair will become more luxurious. And it'll whiten your teeth, too." Or, "people who've used what I'm prescribing you for IBS report a heightened sense of sexual arousal, and multitudinous orgasms."

Would people clamor to take pharmaceuticals even more? ">I< want to lose these damned 5 pounds that stubbornly stick to my hips and thighs, I need to be on that cholesterol-lowering drug," people might say, who don't have any cholesterol problems. And then they might develop them because of the drug lowers their cholesterol even more (momentary recall of my imaginary person using the eye-pressure-lowering drops to get thicker lashes).

But then again, maybe it wouldn't suck so much to have whatever kinds of illnesses leading a person to be medicated in the first place. Can you imagine the inversion of status these people might achieve?

Christine: Kayla, girl, you're looking like a million bucks! Have you been working out?
Kayla: In a manner of speaking! I hadn't told anyone, but I've got irritable bowel syndrome, and my doctor put me on blabbedy-blah, and my sex life has gone through the roof! My girlfriend and I are fucking like monkeys, every day - it's crazy awesome!
Christine: Dammit. Wish >I< had irritable bowel syndrome.

Maybe it IS possible to have pharmaceuticals be this way, but in order to keep healthy people off them (and increase the incidence of unnecessary illnesses from causing changes to normal function), the scientists devise them up in such a way that the only people who will take them, are those willing to risk enduring unpleasant side effects in order to (hopefully) alleviate the other problems they have. Which is the kind of situation we have now, isn't it? Coincidence?