who has 'em?
I'm ready to do some serious work looking into this hormone replacement alternative. would love to hear your experience, thoughts, knowledge, etc on the subject.
sorry to post and run, but will check back later.
Hi guys. I'm not going to give advice on specific drug treatments because as you guys have said, each person's case is very different and they should work with a physician (MD) in choosing a drug regimen. I also applaud all of you for taking an active role in your healthcare and doing your own research. Trained health care professionals are still human beings. There are good ones and not so good ones but nobody knows your body better than you so find one that you can communicate with and that listens to you. Then stick with them.
There are a few comments that cause me to just want to share my experiences. As some of you know, I am a registered pharmacist. I worked as a health fraud investigator for 13 years. During this time I was qualified as an expert in federal and state courts as an expert in dietary supplement law and general pharmacy. I have testified in criminal and civil cases, have written laws related to drugs, have done television interviews and have presented continuing education training to physicians, pharmacists and nurses as well as writing a guide on dietary supplements for poison control centers. I've seen a lot of which the general public is completely unaware. I just want to share a couple of things. Take it or leave it but in your studies please be aware of the things which Skunky has alluded to.
1)
Natural vs Synthetic - Natural does not equal safe.
Naturally occurring biologically active substances almost always are found in combination with many different
alkaloid contaminants which also may have effects on the body. It is very often not feasible to economically extract the contaminants.
Synthetic biologically active substances are
pure active substance (for the most part) combined with inert fillers to make a dosage form such as a pill.
The body breaks down the active ingredient EXACTLY the same whether it came from a plant or animal or a glass vial. It doesn't know the difference between natural and synthetic derivation.
2)
Safety of Dietary Supplements - Drugs (both prescription and over-the-counter) must be proven to be both
safe and effective.
Dietary supplements are regulated as foods and have no requirement to prove either safety or efficacy. As Skunky said, it is truly Buyer Beware.
There are reported cases of pregnant mothers taking Ginseng supplements who gave birth to babies with facial hair. Licorice elevates the blood pressure. Wintergreen thins the blood. and on and on. Just about everything that you put in your mouth could have adverse effects in certain people and certain amounts.
Because there are
no tests required on dietary supplements to prove that what it says is in the product actually is and in the amount that they say, it isn't uncommon for dietary supplements to have "undisclosed" active ingredients. This is especially prominent in the Chinese herbal products. If there's a man flexing his muscles on the box, it could have testosterone in it. If you take it and feel immediately better, it could have prednisone in it. This is widespread, well documented and was the content of the guide that I put together for poison control centers.
One such case that I did had 4 prescription drugs in full dosage amounts in each tablet. People taking it felt great! They were mad at us when we confiscated it but the product had such high doses of prescription anti-inflammatory drugs that it would tear anybody's gut up in short order. No doctor would ever prescribe such a combination. The product also had diazepam (valium) in it. So everybody felt great.
Another case I did, had an ingredient that broke down to methamphetamine in it. It was being targeted to the elderly for memory and depression. Everybody felt great because they were speeding their butts off but the effects on their aging hearts could be fatal.
The biggest targets of fraudulent products are desperate illnessness (cancer, aids, alzheimers) and vanity (weight and hair loss and aging). An "institute" could be in a 4x6 ft closet. A "scientist" requires no expertise or license. Anybody can be nominated for a nobel peace price. There is no conspiracy to kill us by not approving drugs or keeping secrets. The only reason why supplies are going to run out fast is because they are going to get busted soon and Mexico can't even produce clean water, let alone better drugs than the US.
3)
Compounding vs. FDA approved drugs. Manufacturers must prove that they can
consistently make a specific formulation of a drug that:
a) Breaks down in the stomach at a particular rate. If it dissolves too fast or too completely, too much drug will get into the blood stream. If the tablet does not dissolve quick enough, it passes out of the stomach without ever getting into the bloodstream. The size of the particles that it breaks down to in the stomach is also important to know. Too large, they don't pass thru the GI wall. Too small, too much can pass through the barrier. This is called Dissolution and is critical to the amount of active ingredient which gets into the body.
b) Once an active substance gets into the blood, the degree of water or fat solubility determines where the drug goes in the body. For instance, if a drug is intended to act on the brain, it must be fat soluble to get there or it has no effect.
c) Then the active substance must be broken down and removed from the body with the same predictability. Sometimes when an active ingredient is metabolized, it breaks down to a metabolite which also has activity and so the effect is intensified.
It's much more complex than that but the process of movement of a substance in the body is known as "bioavailability" and "bioactivity". Tests are conducted by giving drugs to humans, taking blood and urine samples at various times and measuring the amount of drug in the urine and blood samples. These tests are required for EVERY distinct formulation of a drug before it's approved to prove that it gets to where it needs to get in the proper amounts.
Then each drug has "long term" studies where people are followed for side effects for years afterwards. That's where they went wrong with Thalidomide. Safety was not required to be proven at the time, only efficacy. So there were no long term safety studies that would have indicated the birth defects in the next generation.
The point of this being that compounding pharmacies DO NOT and NEVER WILL be able to conduct the studies required to show safety and efficacy on sample batches of the drugs that they make in their particular pharmacy. Most use "recipes" provided by the company that supplies them with the bulk pharmaceuticals. I have seen evidence of sustained release morphine tablets (intended to be released over 12 hours) dump the entire dose at once into the bloodstream. I have seen compounded eyedrops cause blindness because while a pharmacy can remove bacteria through a microwave or filter, they cannot remove the pyrogens which are the waste of the bacteria. This can only be done through large autoclaves which I have never seen in a pharmacy.
The laws that allow pharmacists to compound date back to the days when pharmacists were like wizards and there was no drug regulation. Today we most often have much better choices in approved drugs that have repeatedly been proven to be safe and effective. There are times when nothing is available and it is appropriate to compound but take it from someone who has done it, when a pharmacist mixes up a product, it's a crapshoot and that pharmacist has no idea if it will get into your system and to what degree. Compounding laws are not intended to allow pharmacists to circumvent the drug approval process but this loophole became big business with big profits. I am not saying that compounding pharmacists are necessarily bad people. Most believe what they are doing is safe. Very few pharmacists have an in depth understanding of the drug approval process, why it exists and how it protects the patient. I had no idea of the importance of FDA approval until I began working as an investigator. In fact, I was taught compounding in pharmacy school. I have worked cases with the very teachers that taught me compounding and they were appalled at what is being done under the auspices of compounding. My pharmaceutical chemistry teacher at the University of Florida became quite vocal about the misuse of compounding and had his life threatened.
My boss' job was threatened if he allowed us to testify before the Florida legeslature regarding compounding. The person that threatened him was a senator who owns compounding pharmacies. I know this sounds like a movie but it's quite real and a big part of why I and many others quit their jobs.
Regarding compounding - With many drugs, it's not as critical but with
time-released tablets or capsules, eye drops and injections, I would never use a compounded product, even if I made it myself.
4)
Buying drugs online - Anyone who distributes prescription drugs in the US must be licensed by their state and sometimes the Feds. This means that both their facility and their records are inspected. There are specific storage requirements that are monitored and
where they get their drugs is closely monitored.
a) Storage - I have personally found many boxes of chemotherapy that must be stored under refrigeration being stored at over 105 degrees in an unlicensed storage unit in South Florida. This is not an isolated case and very sad for the poor people that were counting on that chemotherapy to save their life.
b) Sources of Drugs - My team was the first to identify "counterfeit prescription drugs". Just like designer purses or rolex watches, there is a huge profit in counterfeit drugs that sometimes cost $2.00 to $2,000 per dose. Expired drugs are sometimes relabeled. Empty vials are saved and refilled with something completely different. The counterfeits are so difficult to identify that we would often need to order the labeling proof overlays from drug manufacturers to see the subtle differences in the labels. We found Epogen vials (used for dialysis in children) that were filled with insulin (yes insulin). Epogen was at the time supplied in the exact size and shape vials as Lilly's insulin. The counterfeiters made Epogen labels and slapped them on bottles of insulin. Insulin costs about $10/vial. Epogen is several hundred dollars per vial. - A pretty good profit.
We found counterfeit drugs in just about every wholesaler in the state, licensed and unlicensed which went to hundreds of pharmacies and hospitals. The point - if you buy prescription drugs from anything but monitored, US liscensed sources, you are doing it at your own risk. If you go to your pharmacy and your pills don't look quite right, (maybe you don't know what it is exactly but something is different) - bring them back to the pharmacy and question them. Counterfeit drugs are a reality and will only become worse as our drugs becomes more sophisticated (and expensive).
I know that some of this is too technical for some to understand but for those that do understand, I encourage you to look closely at every tablet that you put into your mouth. The only supplement that I take is a multivitamin from a manufacturer that is licensed and inspected - Centrum. That's it.
I made it through menopause relatively effortlessly and pray that I never have some of the issues that some of you ladys have had. If I do, I will work closely with my doctor until we can find the best solution, whether it's diet, supplements or drugs. Toots made a very good comment - exercise is the best thing that we can do to keep these aging machines running well. I'm as guilty as everyone else there but I'm on a constant quest to try to get myself back into a regular exercise routine.
When we busted one of the distributors of the Chinese herbal supplements, we asked him why they put prescription drugs in the products. He said, "Americans want fix now, Asians know herbs take long time."
Sorry for being so long but maybe someone will get something from it. I don't talk about my past much but when I hear my peeps looking for alternative medicines, I want them to know what is out there.
will later...)
. Is there a specific bioidentical substance that you are considering or are you interested in the category of substances as a whole because one may have more merit than an other.