Why do some people have a higher "tolerance" to medication than others?
964238
When a drug enters your body it attaches to receptors on your cells.  These receptors initiate the appropriate response.  When these receptors are fired over and over again, then they can start they start to wear out.  It takes more of the drup to get a response.
338562
I would image somthing like, people can get addicted to a pain killer, yet people can be dependent on a blood pressure medicine.\n\nThe pain killer they "have to have" but because of their addiction; and  the pressure medication they "have to have" but really only for medical reasons.
967172
We all genetically have different tolerance levels for one.  The genetic component of why people suffer from certain diseases comes into play when a person's tolerance level has been reached.  When you're taxed beyond your body's ability to tolerate toxic elements of your life, diseases start to appear.  Environmental factors and emotional and mental stress factors all need to be taken into account together.  When we're emotionally stressed our bodies produce things like cortisol and inflammation.  Inflammation is the root cause of most illness.  If you really want to delve into the subject, you might enjoy the book called Feelings Buried Alive Never Die.
213025
Don't let your friend stop taking it. It can cause serious problems. Does this person have bi-polar disorder, paranoid schizophrenia or autism? Either way when the meds wear off the symptoms will be much more difficult to deal with and your friend may not be able to control her actions. Talk to her parents or guardians to let them know what is going on.
829753
I'd like remark about the comment "I have know 2 people who are bipolar, both who treat the disorder with Ritalin."  I have Bipolar and A.D.D. I take a separate med for the Bipolar (Lamictal) I LOVE IT!!  I take Medadate cd for my A.D.D. which is equivalent to Ritalin.  Not sure how the people you know with Bipolar are doing but I would think that when they go into their High Manic state they could harm themselves or someone else.  I know that until I was treated my Highs were pure RAGE so I can only imagine what could have happened if I were taking an amphetamine alone.\n\nWhat is Bipolar Disorder?\n\nThe exact cause of bipolar disorder is unknown.\n\nBipolar disorder (also known as manic-depression) is a serious, lifelong medical condition. It affects more than 2 million people in the United States. \n\n It’s a medical condition. Bipolar disorder may be related to a chemical imbalance in the brain, genetics, or abnormalities in brain structure. \n\nPeople with bipolar disorder can have mood swings, including depression (extreme lows) and mania (extreme highs). \n\nA period of depression or mania is called an episode. Individuals may experience episodes of depression or mania throughout life. \n\nEpisodes may be separated by long periods with few or no symptoms. To help keep bipolar disorder under control, medication is often taken even when few or no symptoms are present.
1092319
I think there are many reasons that people turn to chemical enlightenment.  Some of the big one though is that some are searching for something to fix something in their life that is off-kilter.  I also think that some people are so sensitive and their brain gets overloaded so easily they use it as an escape route... to dull their reality.\n\nSecular law tries to control it; they do the best they can with the resources they have.\n\nI think many people relapse or don't become desensitized to it (i don't think if you are an addict you are ever truly cured of the chemical addiction) because just fixing the chemical dependency doesn't cut the mustard.  If the underlying issues which made the person feel like they had to turn to drugs aren't dealt with you have someone trying to recover who still has the same feelings which turned them to the drugs in the first place.  \n\nI think society has to be more sensitive to the needs of its people to see a decline in drug use.
881798
I used to work in ER registration and was exposed to everything.  My only answer was maybe we built up an immunity to some diseases, or we just were to work conscious to get sick.  The doctors do get sick, but they also have quicker access to treatment than the average person does.  And they also have   samples of the latest, most effective  meds given out by medical sales people.
147781
some people feel the need to make thier problems go away by not facing them. The only problem is they dont relize once the drugs have wore off the problem is still there but worse, so they do more drugs. And some people just like the energy some drugs can give them and the feeling of having control of there life (even though they obviously dont have control...the drugs do. And the amazing feeling you can get after smoking a big fat one.
326491
as far as i know, its the same way it becomes immune to antibiotics and other medication...your body develops a tolerance.
1022397
some people just have very poor tolerance for alcohol, or you may have an allergy to it.
386717
Quality and tolerance are related through the subjective realm of the mind.  Both depend upon "opinion."\n\nTolerance leads to diversity.  Diversity leads to greatest variety in choices.  This in turn leads to greater quality.
59897
It's the effect that people get when they believe they should get one.\n\nBasically, it comes from the expectation that something good should happen.  \n\nThere was an experiment once, where they wanted to determine if the level of light over the work area could effect production.  They went into the area and changed the light bulbs to a higher wattage.  Work production increased.  Ahha! they thought.  Higher light increases production.  Then they went in and changed the light bulbs back to the original ones.  You might think that production dropped, but in fact it increased again.\n\nThe people were reacting to the attention they were getting.  The feeling that someone was paying attention to them increased their production.\n\nSo, the placebo effect is one that we perceive someone is concerned about us, and the "medication" we are getting should make us feel better.  And it often does, even if there is no medication in the pill.  \n\nA company researching a new medication would want to give a placebo to a group of people they were testing to ensure that it was their medication and not the "placebo effect" that was causing the improvement.
266993
People are classifying things wrong.\n\nStimulants make you more awake and makes parts of your brain more active, depressants make you sleepy and make parts of your brain less active, and hallucinogens cause hallucinations (you see/hear/feel things that aren't really there).\n\nStimulants ("uppers"):\nCaffeine\namphetamine/methampetamine/"ice" (a form of freebase methamphetamine)\nCocaine/crack (a form of freebase cocaine)\nNicotine\n\nDepressants ("downers"):\nAlcohol\nValium/Xanax (benzodiazepines, prescribed for anxiety)\nHeroin/morphine/codeine (these are opiates)\nDemerol/Fentanyl/Nalone/oxycontin (synthetic opiods, used as pain killers)\nNitrous Oxide (aka laughing gas, used for anesthesia)\nEther (formerly used for anesthetia)\n\nHallucinogens/Psychadelics:\nLSD (aka "acid")\nPsilocybin ("magic mushrooms")\nPeyote/mescaline\n\nSome other common drugs need special classification.\n\nPCP and Ketamine (Special K) are horse tranquilizers.  in humans, they have bizarre properties, because the way they work is strange (they bind to a site inside the muscarinic acetylcholine receptor, so they can only affect regions already active).  They have some properties of depressants (people are said to feel no pain, and their thinking becomes muddled), they have some hallucinogenic qualities (some people hallucinate on some occasions), and they have some traits of stimulants (people can grow active or violent on PCP--users are notorious for being hard for police to get under control).  Some classify PCP, ketamine, and Nitrous Oxide as dissociatives, which form their own special class.\n\nMarijuana is likewise odd.  Hallicinations can happen, but are generally rare.  Many people find that it makes them sleepy, and it definitely is known to delay your reaction times, but it isn't like a traditional depressant.  Finally, it has some (very few) traits that are seen as stimulatory, because some people like to be incredibly active while using them (a competitive snowboarder got caught with THC in his system a few years ago), and it can cause extreme paranoia (generally associated with stimulants).  In my opinion, it is best that cannabinoids are considered their own seperate class of drugs.\n\nMDMA (aka Ecstacy, E, X) is another oddball.  Some people put E along with drugs like LSD and mescaline into a category called "entheogens," as these drugs are all known to make people highly introspective.  It is often called a psychadelic, but primarily because it works on the same sorts of receptors that psychadelics work on (aka serotonin receptors).  The best category for MDMA is enactogen, which applies to a subset of psychadelics that don't necessarily cause hallucination (like LSD).  Though MDMA is an amphetamine derivative, the most significant of its affects are not stimulatory.  The term enactogen applies to these sorts of drugs that exert their primary effects on a person's emotional state.  Stimulants and depressants are defined by the levels of mental arousal they give, and psychadelics are defined by the alteration of senses.
1135435
Medical "professionals" give away antidepressants a lot because putting somebody on drugs is quicker and easier than actually trying to solve their problem.  Depression does often involve chemical imbalances in the brain, and medication helps many people who suffer from depression.  But much depression is caused by life circumstances, and medication can't fix your life.  But if the doctor just hands out a pill, then it becomes a "quick fix" and they don't really have to deal with the problem.
963750
Some poeple (me for example) are just born with the characteristic of more pain tolerance, while others may be born with another physical characteristic.but most of the time it is genitic.   \n\npeace out.
66013
I am no doctor, but I personally believe that any mind-altering thing lessens one's ability to reason. Once reason is gone, the person is simply reactive. If they react faster, it is because they lack ability to think about, or weigh, their response. It may not necessarily be anger; it may be laughter, fear, sadness, anything. If the response came too fast (without thought, or reason) -then I  say "Yes", drugs made that person's fuse very short.
435932
i'm not, but it's not just psych drugs that people are turning to, it's other medications as well.  advertising does wonders.