Drugs and prescribing

1,242 articles · Since 2007

Articles, page 22

The problem with first-person reporting of unproven interventions

August 2, 2018Aug 2, 20182

Houston Chronicle reporter Craig Hlavaty recently treated readers to a first-person account of getting an intravenous (IV) vitamin infusion inside a van parked outside his house. The article, “Feeling the drip, drip, drip of the mobile IV craze,” related how…

Houston Chronicle reporter Craig Hlavaty recently treated readers to a first-person account of getting an intravenous (IV) vitamin infusion inside a van parked outside his house.

The article, “Feeling the drip, drip, drip of the mobile IV craze,” related how a needle was inserted into his arm, “just where a tattooed lightning bolt strikes.”

Hlavaty extolled the cool rush of liquid into his veins:

After a few minutes, a great euphoria hits …

The double-edged power of the medications we prescribe

Hans Duvefelt, MD

July 30, 2018Jul 30, 2018

My patient, a rugged sixty year old with massively muscular forearms, gray chest hair at the V of his denim shirt, and a voice that suggested years of liquor and unfiltered cigarettes, lowered his voice and leaned forward. “I’m not…

“I’m not usually scared of anything, but for three nights now, ever since I started taking the Levaquin for this pneumonia, I have had the most horrific nightmares. I can’t even talk about …

The other side of Suboxone

Dennis Wichern

July 28, 2018Jul 28, 201811

A lot has been written about Suboxone, the buprenorphine treatment drug. For many, Suboxone acts as an effective medication to treat opioid addiction. For others, it’s a highly-valued street drug that is commonly diverted and misused. To understand and acknowledge…

History of Suboxone

Suboxone was first approved by the FDA in 2002 to treat …

Read more…

The other side of Suboxone

Real physician voices, twice a week

Free, and one click to unsubscribe.

Are abuse-deterrent opioids the solution to the opioid crisis?

Tiffany Lu, MD

July 17, 2018Jul 17, 20187

As a primary care doctor who cares for many patients with opioid-use disorder, I am invested in timely and effective strategies to curb our nation’s opioid epidemic. Because so many instances of opioid addiction and overdoses begin with or involve commonly prescribed opioids, we need multiple strategies that address the significant harms associated with prescription opioids.

I am skeptical of one strategy, however: The President’s Commission and the Food and Drug Administration are …

Prescription drugs are killing students and the educational system

Yasir Khan, MD

July 11, 2018Jul 11, 20188

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 63,632 individuals died in 2016 as a result of drug overdose. Among these, 66 percent died from opioid overdose. The statistics are derived from in-depth research that was carried out by the research institute in 2016. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that cases of drug abuse are swiftly spreading geographically and increasing demographically. The …

An innovative approach to fix the generic drug shortage

Christopher Johnson, MD

June 19, 2018Jun 19, 2018

Most physicians are increasingly forced to grapple with the problem of shortages in generic drugs. These are drugs for which the patent has expired and any company can make them. Certainly for those of us in the PICU it is a chronic problem because the majority of drugs we use are injectable medications that have been generic for many years. Hardly a week goes by I don’t receive a notification …

Want to dispose of drugs properly? Here’s how.

Dennis Wichern

June 7, 2018Jun 7, 2018

According to Bloomberg, Americans spend more on prescription drugs per year than any other country in the world at around $1,100 per person. Additionally, the CDC reports that four out of five new heroin users started their addiction by using…

According to Bloomberg, Americans spend more on prescription drugs per year than any other country in the world at around $1,100 per person.

Additionally, the CDC reports that four out of five new heroin users started their addiction by using prescription opioid painkillers like hydrocodone or oxycodone.

And we know from the Partnership for a Drug-free America that students and young adults oftentimes …

A DEA agent explains how to fight the opioid crisis and mitigate DEA risk

Dennis Wichern

June 4, 2018Jun 4, 20185

42,000. That’s the number of CDC reported overdose deaths in 2016 due to opioids. Ten percent. That’s the percentage of the estimated 2.1 million opioid substance abusers receiving treatment help and even fewer afforded medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for their struggles.…

42,000. That’s the number of CDC reported overdose deaths in 2016 due to opioids.

Ten percent. That’s the percentage of the estimated 2.1 million opioid substance abusers receiving treatment help and even fewer afforded medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for their struggles.

Three percent or around 40,000. That’s the number of physicians out of a total of 1.3 million across the U.S. qualified by the Substance …

Why you should think twice about prescribing antibiotics

Rich Rodriguez, MD

June 3, 2018Jun 3, 201812

A meme forwarded to me last year showed a chimp with the caption: “Monkey trained to dispense Z-Paks at urgent care.” As one of the medical directors for a multi-office urgent care practice, one of the tasks is performing a…

A meme forwarded to me last year showed a chimp with the caption: “Monkey trained to dispense Z-Paks at urgent care.”

As one of the medical directors for a multi-office urgent care practice, one of the tasks is performing a chart review. One of the patterns we see too often is ubiquitous Z-Pak prescriptions for purported cough, sore throat, sinusitis and even an allergic rhinitis this last batch. Z-Paks are one …

A missed opportunity to fix drug pricing

Brian C. Joondeph, MD

May 27, 2018May 27, 201811

President Trump recently unveiled a plan to, “Bring soaring drug prices back down to earth.” Acknowledging that the current system is broken, with drug prices beyond the reach of many patients, the President’s plan targets drug patents, pharmacy benefits managers,…

Yet he misses one of the big elephants in the room, the fact that here in the U.S, Medicare is forbidden to negotiate …

Dementia patients want effective drugs. How will the FDA respond?

Ron Louie, MD

May 16, 2018May 16, 2018

Dementia patients want effective drugs. Five years ago, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed changes to speed drug approvals for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). No new drugs have been approved. This year, a new FDA draft guidance discusses considering biomarker data and changing cognitive evaluations for accelerated approvals. Would that help make effective drugs available, or are we lowering our expectations?

Numerous dementia agents have failed current …

To Paxil, with love

Jennifer L. Barkin, PhD

May 12, 2018May 12, 20189

In 1994, Penguin Books published what would become a national bestseller titled, Listening to Prozac written by Dr. Peter Kramer, a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Brown University at the time. Throughout the book, he debates the ethics of “cosmetic pharmacology” a term associated with the transformation of personality traits through medication. Kramer describes several patients as becoming “better than well” on Prozac — more socially adept, less inhibited, and …

Read more…

To Paxil, with love

The opioid crisis: Doctors cannot lose hope

Linda Girgis, MD

May 2, 2018May 2, 20184

While our elected officials in Washington spin political rhetoric and quote scary statistics around the opioid epidemic, New Jersey was one of the first states to take actual action. In February of this year, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal declared its plan of combat: a 24-hour response team, improvements to the prescription monitoring program, and over a million dollars in federal grants. In fact, the Office of …

This doctor stopped prescribing opioids. Other physicians should do the same.

Thomas D. Guastavino, MD

April 14, 2018Apr 14, 2018104

Have you ever had a prescription altered? I have, several times — all opioids. Despite making copies of every prescription to prove what I actually wrote for, dealing with everything from patients who threatened to sue me for false accusations to time spent with the DEA was a real pain. The good news is that during the pre “pain as fifth vital sign” era at least — since my prescribing …

Cutting the red tape with buprenorphine treatment for opioid use disorder

Christina Kinnevey, MD

April 10, 2018Apr 10, 20185

Tuesday morning. Sarah wakes up at 4 a.m., like every other morning, to go to clinic to get a medicine she cannot function without. But it’s not as easy as that. She has to take her three small children with her because she is a single parent and has no one else to stay at home with them. She does this six days a week. This is her life. This is the reality of …

Crippling drug costs: the role of insurers

Janice Boughton, MD

March 27, 2018Mar 27, 20182

Drug costs in the U.S. are higher than in in any other industrialized country in the world. Our cost for an insulin glargine (long-acting insulin) pen is $76.80 and in Canada, so very few miles away, it costs $19.60. The latter price is reasonable. The former price can make the difference between being able to afford a life-saving drug and dying. It is illegal, however, for a U.S. citizen to …

10 tips to help patients through benzodiazepine withdrawal

Christy Huff, MD

March 20, 2018Mar 20, 20184

As physicians, we are experts at prescribing medications. However, we often fail miserably when it comes to recognizing adverse reactions and tapering medications. It's something that is simply lacking in our medical training. I have become a victim of this…

As physicians, we are experts at prescribing medications. However, we often fail miserably when it comes to recognizing adverse reactions and tapering medications. It’s something that is simply lacking in our medical training. I have become a victim of this with benzodiazepines, as I detailed in a prior blog post. Benzodiazepines, in particular, are very difficult drugs to taper. I would like to share with you …

How hospitals can impact generic drug companies

Mark Kelley, MD

February 6, 2018Feb 6, 2018

The costs of many generic drugs have skyrocketed. In some cases, the price of a single pill has increased over 500 percent. But help may be on the way. Recently several large and respected non-profit hospital systems indicated that they…

The costs of many generic drugs have skyrocketed. In some cases, the price of a single pill has increased over 500 percent.

But help may be on the way. Recently several large and respected non-profit hospital systems indicated that they will “fire a shot across the bow” of the generic drug business. That would be a game-changer.

Why has the price of generics skyrocketed?

Some large drug companies have purchased …

A drug problem in rural Georgia

Ashish Advani, PharmD

February 4, 2018Feb 4, 2018

Meet Johnathan, a 34-year-old male from rural Georgia we recently treated for back pain as a result of some extra contractor work he took on over the holidays. We see patients like him every 11 minutes, which doesn’t leave much…

***

Of the 91 Americans taken each day, Georgia now claims …

Read more…

A drug problem in rural Georgia

Here’s why doctors must know prescription costs

Mark Kelley, MD

January 10, 2018Jan 10, 20186

As the health care debate drags on, prescription drug costs continue to rise by almost 10 percent annually. It is the rare patient who is spared this expense. Over the years, I have seen how these costs have affected my…

As the health care debate drags on, prescription drug costs continue to rise by almost 10 percent annually. It is the rare patient who is spared this expense.

Over the years, I have seen how these costs have affected my patients. At first, most patients had little in the way of co-pays. However, once the local economy deteriorated, co-pays skyrocketed as employers tried to curb their health care expenses. Now, large …

Drugs and prescribing

Articles, page 22

Real physician voices, twice a week

The Podcast

Latest episodes

Most popular

The Podcast

Latest episodes

Most popular