How involved are you with your health care decisions?

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Years ago a doctor put me on several medications for my Crohn's disease and colitis that had some horrible side effects. My body grew weak. I could barely hold my head up without massive pain. I did some research and found one of the medicines to cause muscle loss and another to cause bone loss. I felt my body deteriorating daily. I returned to the doctor every couple of weeks for checkups to see whether we had my disease under control. Each time I would ask him about discontinuing these medications he would tell me that I could not stop taking them. I did more research and asked him about some alternative medications. He told me in no uncertain terms that he was my doctor and I would do as he said... I changed doctors and got off the medications! What would you have done in these circumstances? Would you have just blindly followed doctors' orders and continued taking medications that made you feel worse than you felt without them? Would you have at least gotten information from other sources or gotten a second opinion?