Six Medications Explained in Pictures from Famous Movies and TV Shows

Introduction

Just for funsies, sometimes I like to go into my medicine cabinet and peel off the labels from all my prescriptions (and there’s a lot of them—I am just a decaying mess of a human being). This way, the next time I need a pill it’s a total mystery as to whether or not I’m going to feel euphoric, explosive diarretic, or comatose.

This anecdote actually has nothing to do with this article except that it’s also about pills and I like to let people into the darkest rooms of my brain, whether they like it or not.

Don't worry, the inside of my head looks just like the living room from Silver Spoons. 

The Real, Less Horrifying Introduction

Ever get bored and read the fine print on that prescription medication you just picked up from the pharmacist? The list of side effects is inevitably horrifying. For example, dig these possible side effects:

• black, bloody, or tarry stools;
• coughing up blood or vomit that looks like coffee grounds;
• severe nausea, vomiting, or stomach pain;
• fever lasting longer than 3 days;
• swelling, or pain lasting longer than 10 days;

This is not a description of the final days of tuberculosis. These are the side effects from a tiny white pill which, if you’re anything like me, you probably pop like Skittles on a near daily basis—aspirin.

My god, man. Can you imagine if those kinds of side effects came with, I don’t know, a tube of Pringles? Do you think people would still eat them?

 

 Probably, but you wouldn’t be proud of it.

But pharmacy companies regularly get away with this kinds of pants-shitting shenanigans. And why? Is it because that people are willing to trade embarrassing khaki stains if it means relief from sickness? No, it’s because people don’t read fine print.

Reading is hard, you guys.

So I propose that instead of the long, microscopic lists of ways in which the medication you just picked up will turn your poop various shades of the rainbow, that the pharmacy companies go with billboard size pictorial representations of your future side effects.

How would that work, you ask, invisible person inside my head? Just like this.

Six Medications Explained in Pictures from Famous Movies and TV Shows

1.     Adderall

Your eyeballs will dry out like sundried tomatoes. Your sense of focus will rival that of a Jedi, whether you like it or not. You won’t sleep ever again.

2. Prozac

Get ready to put on a warm, fuzzy sweater…on your brain. You’ll be stupidly happy and optimistic and will neither know nor care why. You will have also have the sex drive of the trolley from Make Believe Land.

3.     Ambien

You may not fall asleep but you will look exactly like this (minus Brad Pitt’s movie star good looks)

4.     Viagra

You have never seen a real erection before.

5.     Miralax (Stool Softener)

Just like this only without the gold statue in your hands.

6.  Mucinex (with DXM)

You can fly! You can fly! You can fly! And also, no more coughing, so score!