I know my blood pressure medicine works for instance because every time I talk to my doctor about reducing it or getting off it, I monitor my blood pressure and it spikes.
I know psuedophredrine works.
And your data is just that, “anecdotal”, it’s no better than the people doing “research” by watching YouTube on the toilet.
And a “pharmacist” isn’t exactly the best trained person when it comes to knowing how to do a drug research or to know its efficacy for patients compared to even a GP who is monitoring patients and keeping records of blood work and other stats
(Consider: how many problems are there with your body that you’re actually likely to be able to solve with a drug that can be taken safely and correctly at basically any dose, basically any schedule, quitting whenever you like, and without checking for cross-drug interactions? Because those are the requirements for a drug to be OTC. There exist far more OTC drugs than there should, given the number of OTC-able problems, is what I’m saying.)
It’s best to look at all cause mortality in your example. Many studies have looked at that endpoint if you are curious.
It’s not like I said “I feel better” when taking it. So my blood pressure just magically comes down after I’m taking it?
You posted an anecdote.
But there’s also lots of clinically collected evidence behind blood pressure medicine, right? I don’t see why anyone would have reason to doubt you.