What about people who have to be on medication? I mean... Most pharmaceuticals contain some sort of animal product and have been tested on animals.

I'm asking this for myself because I have to take a medication for the rest of my life unless a cure is found. I have something that can't be cured with diet. I know many things can, but not this. My immune system destroys chemicals in the brain (hypocretin/orexin) that regulate sleep cycles. I need the meds just to stay awake.

How do I get past the part of feeling guilty for taking the med?? Is anyone else in this position?

When it comes to medication, if I need a medication that only comes in gelatin capsules, I ask myself:

1) Is this something I can get another medication for?
2) Is this life-threatening?
3) Does this warrant an exemption?

If it's something I can fight off on my own, I won't do it.

But if it's something I NEED - like a diabetic needs their insulin, like someone with AIDS needs the pills that keep them alive, like someone with manic-depression needs their medication to function in society - that warrants for an exemption.

If you omit taking the medicine in a life-threatening situation, you willingly kill yourself to conform to a very, very high bar you've set for yourself when it comes to personal ethics. What good are you to animals if you are dead? If you die, you're gone. But if you pull through your illness, you can fight for animal rights and help use your many long years ahead to not only fight to change legislature regarding animal rights but to lobby pharmaceutical companies to provide more vegetarian options.

Remember, whether you like it or not, just about all drugs on the market were tested on animals, gelatin capsule or not. Oftentimes testing is unnecessary, extreme or even repetitive - drugs have to be tested every few years, sometimes patents need to be re-upped or a hold or suspension on a harmful substance is up and drug companies will do anything to see if there's a way they can put it back on market again. Sometimes the same deadly drug, or STUPID medication (do we really need ANOTHER PMS-fighting pill?) will be tested again and again, killing animals in the process and putting them through undue pain and torture.

(continued) No matter what your ethical stance is, you do more for animal rights and for vegetarians everywhere by putting your life first and staying alive. Your "martyr" corpse can't run for elective office, can't start organizations to support anti-vivisection laws, can't talk to and encourage the hundreds of people you'll come across and know in your life to become vegetarian. All you will be is dead or very, very ill.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080914102900AA8Aavg (this is where this is from)

I think that the above statement that I found says it better than I could have, so just read that, because they are my thoughts exactly (though spoken by someone else)

http://veganrockergirl.blogspot.com

Thank you so  much for that. I feel better with that response... Because it's true, if I don't take the medication, I can't do much of anything. Can't drive, write novels, go to the grocery, make something to eat, etc! With the medication, I can :) Thank you... Really.

You're very welcome.  Maybe someday, the medical field will operate differently, but until then, if it's absolutely medically necessary for you, than you have to do what you must.  No judgement there.