I have been under the weather all week. At first, I thought it was a cold that I had caught from my granddaughter. But the symptoms never developed into a cold. It was just a fever with aches, and severe dehydration with weakness and dizziness. But none of the traditional cold symptoms.

I had recently started taking a pharmaceutical for my osteoporosis. (Yes, men do get osteoporosis, but most doctors never bother to test for it.) After four days without cold symptoms, I called the company that makes this "miracle" drug and spoke to their customer service people. Turns out that it's one of the hundreds of known side effects for this drug, but not one of the ones listed on the extensive material that are given out with this drug, or published on their web site.

So if I had gone to my doctor and told him my symptoms, he probably wouldn't have associated them with the drug. He would have told me to take some aspirins for the fever, drink plenty of fluids, get some rest, and I would be okay. But he would have had me continue with this medicine. (If you're curious, I've stopped taking it on my own.)

Drugs like the one I was taking, and like the statins, are part of a new class of drugs that carry high risk along with their supposed benefits. In many cases their side effects can be damaging and permanent. Yet they are prescribed almost automatically, sometimes to people who may not really need them, but would be better off with lifestyle changes involving diet, exercise, and supplements (vitamins, minerals, etc.).

I just lost a week to this wonder drug and I don't know if there will be any further problems associated with its use. The good news is that the diagnosis of osteoporosis had already set in motion lifestyle changes that have a real and positive effect on my daily life.

We'll see how it turns out.