Medications

Physicians writing on KevinMD about the drugs they prescribe and the ones they cannot get: prior authorization and step therapy, opioid prescribing and the tapers that followed the CDC guideline, the GLP-1 drugs from Ozempic to oral Wegovy and what happens when patients stop them, shortages, compounded versions, and what a prescription costs the patient. Three maintained records draw on this archive: Opioids: what physicians and pain patients say, in their own words, Prior authorization: what physicians say, in their own words, and GLP-1 drugs: what physicians say about Ozempic and its successors, in their own words.

How to know whether alternative medicine is safe

Juliet K. Mavromatis, MD

Medications

July 14, 2013

Recently a patient of mine brought in a bottle given to her by her acupuncturist. She had turned to acupuncture with my encouragement after traditional medicine fell short at addressing her chronic pain. Indeed, there is data to support the efficacy of acupuncture in the management of chronic pain. I was encouraged to hear that this treatment, often labeled as “alternative,” seemed to be helping her substantially.

However, my patient’s questions …

The truth about guar gum

Dr. Charles

Medications

July 4, 2013

image_01_b

It is increasingly difficult to find real ice cream. When reading the ingredient list it is discouraging how many cheap fillers, consistency modifiers, and shelf life extenders are included. One ingredient, namely guar gum, seems fairly ubiquitous. So what is guar gum, and why is it found in so many products including ice cream? Is it “bad” to eat?

Guar …

Read more…

The truth about guar gum

Herbal medicine: 6 tips to consider when talking to your patients

Robin Friedlander, MD

Medications

July 4, 2013

Herbal medicines make most doctors cringe, laugh, or want to put blinders on and pretend they don’t exist. This is understandable. While allopathic medical education hammers pharmaceutical formulas and mechanisms of action into our brains, we learn little-to-nothing about herbs in medical school. Quite the opposite – we are most often told to uniformly discourage our patients from taking herbs out of concern for safety; a conversation stopper with little …

If you believe in vaccines, please speak up

Claire McCarthy, MD

Medications

June 25, 2013

shutterstock_171003107

If you believe in vaccines, can you speak up?

When we are unsure about decisions, we want to know what our friends and loved ones think. This is normal and understandable; after all, these are people who are important to us, people whose opinions we value and trust.

We also turn to these people when making medical decisions–including ones about immunizations. While what …

Genomics and personalized medicine: Is it really different this time?

J. Leonard Lichtenfeld, MD

Medications

June 24, 2013

Another year and another annual meeting for the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago. This is a meeting that regularly attracts many thousands of doctors, researchers, pharmaceutical folks and others interested in the science and business of cancer from around the globe to learn, to discuss, to persuade, to educate on the progress being made in clinical cancer …

Protect patients from the effects of biased research

Kenneth Lin, MD

Medications

June 23, 2013

Approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market a new drug is a critical waypoint along the path to profits for pharmaceutical manufacturers. Unfortunately, recent case studies have illustrated that FDA approval does not necessarily provide assurances of effectiveness and safety.

In last month’s Georgetown University Health Policy seminar, we discussed two examples, anemia drugs and the diabetes drug rosiglitazone (Avandia), which were …

The FDA is regulating the wrong things

Janice Boughton, MD

Medications

June 16, 2013

The Food and Drug Administration was created in 1927 in order to carry out the mission of the Food and Drug Act put into effect by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. In the early 1900’s and before, medicines killed and maimed people in gruesome ways and adding chemical substances to foods to mask the fact that they were rotten or substandard was felt to need some sort of legal response. The …

Read more…

The FDA is regulating the wrong things

Stop prescribing benzodiazepines for anxiety

Anonymous

Medications

June 14, 2013

As a physician in a rural health clinic, I frequently see patients who complain of anxiety. The majority of these patients are in their 20s to 40s. Some have never been evaluated by a mental health professional, and many of these patients take benzodiazepines on a chronic basis. After current review, I wonder if we as primary care physicians are good at treating anxiety, or are we contributing to drug …

Prescription labels need to come in languages other than English

David Margolius, MD

Medications

June 8, 2013

As the saying goes, “With great power comes great responsibility.” That applies to physicians when prescribing medications, but it also should apply to pharmacies when they’re dispensing medications.

In December, after seven years of exams, lectures and rounds, I received my medical license. Finally, I had the power to prescribe medications without the co-signature of my supervisor. “Be careful,” she advised, “remember the …

Is self-rationing of medications a good or a bad thing?

Trudy Lieberman

Medications

June 6, 2013

In America, the conventional wisdom is that we don’t ration health care. But we do, and there’s no better example than patients rationing themselves when it comes to the medicines they take.

Recently, a young twenty-something I know had a nagging cough—seasonal allergies, her doctor said and prescribed a generic medicine for asthma and allergies. She did not fill the prescription—the $160 price tag was too steep. Although she had health …

Don’t punish all doctors to find a few dangerous physicians

Shirie Leng, MD

Medications

June 5, 2013

One of the things that used to make physicians different from other providers is the ability to prescribe drugs. This is not true anymore, but the majority of prescriptions are still written by doctors. Prescribing practices of physicians vary widely across different populations and specialties. If a doctor takes Medicare patients, his prescribing patterns are part of the mountains of data Medicare collects about it’s patients. In 2003 the government …

The only thing a cleanse truly cleans is your wallet

Jennifer Gunter, MD

Medications

May 30, 2013

From time to time I get asked about cleanses. What is typically meant by a “cleanse” is only drinking a juice concoction for several days. Some cleanses add things like cider vinegar, cayenne pepper, or other supposedly “healthy” substances.

The most common reasons to “cleanse” that I hear from people who drink these things include:

Lose weight
Feel better
Remove “toxins”

Let’s start with weight loss. Cleanses are very low calorie and don’t contain protein …

When patients rely on financial assistance programs for drugs

Nancy Meredith

Medications

May 22, 2013

I had been laid off a few months when my ulcerative colitis kicked in, and my doctor and I struggled to get it under control. After trying a variety of medicines, my health continued to deteriorate and I agreed to take Remicade.

Remicade is a potent drug, administered through an IV infusion at the oncology center that comes with a whole host of potential side effects. The dosage requires an initial …

We want teens to know about emergency contraception

Wendy Sue Swanson, MD

Medications

May 16, 2013

plan-b

The FDA announced recently that it is approving Plan B for all girls age 15 and up without a prescription.

This is good news for girls in the US of A. The easier the access to contraception, the less likely girls will have an unintended pregnancy.

As many as 80% of pregnancies in teen girls in the United States are unintended. Most pregnancies are …

Can coffee help you live longer?

Manoj Jain, MD, MPH

Medications

May 13, 2013

If you drink coffee, I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that the more cups of coffee you drink, the higher your risk of dying early. The good news is that if you “risk adjust,” then the more cups of coffee you drink, the lower your risk of dying early. Let me explain.

According to a Read more…

Can coffee help you live longer?

Prescribing antibiotics: It’s time to draw a hard line

Wesley Nickens, MD

Medications

May 11, 2013

This is a call to arms to my fellow providers to protect our patients from themselves and our willingness to comply with their requests. We live and practice in a society filled with fear of medications and their side effects. People will not take blood pressure, cholesterol, or diabetic medication because of the side effects they have heard or read about.

However, these same patients will take antibiotics every day of …

When alternative cancer therapy harms patients

James C. Salwitz, MD

Medications

May 6, 2013

After a terribly painful and debilitating illness, Steve died. He had been treated for Stage 2 Hodgkin’s Disease with a series of intense therapies including German enzymes, American antineoplastins, Mexican naturopathy and Chinese herbs, complemented by focused meditation, innumerable vitamins, extreme diet modification and acupuncture for severe pain. He fought the cancer with every ounce of his being, doing everything to survive, except the one thing that had an 85% …

Azithromycin and long QT syndrome: Facts from a cardiologist

John Mandrola, MD

Medications

May 4, 2013

Text message: “John, This cough and congestion is killing me. It’s turning thick and green. Can you write me a Z-pak? It always works for me.”

If you write a blog on medical decision-making and heart rhythm matters, it seems an incredible omission not to opine on the FDA warning concerning the commonly used antibiotic azithromycin (the drug in a Z-pak). Quoting directly from the FDA warning:

[Azithromycin] can cause …

Read more…

Azithromycin and long QT syndrome: Facts from a cardiologist

A high calcium diet and calcium supplementation: Is it bad for you?

Janice Boughton, MD

Medications

April 30, 2013

An article from Sweden was recently published showing that in a very large group of women, over 60,000 of them, followed for 19 years as part of an also very interesting study of the effectiveness of mammograms, women who get more calcium, in their diet or as supplements, had a higher risk of dying of anything, but especially of heart attacks. It is …

Planting drug industry-funded papers in medical journals

Martha Rosenberg

Medications

April 29, 2013

Where did the medical community get the idea that Vioxx, Trovan and Baycol were safe and the benefits of Prempro, Neurontin and bisphosphonates outweighed their risks? From research published in medical journals written by drug companies or drug-company funded authors.

Scratch the surface of many blockbuster drugs that went on to be discredited, or even withdrawn as risks emerged, and an elaborate “publication plan” emerges, developed by …

Medications

Most Popular

Past Week

Past 6 Months

Recent Posts

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Most Popular

Past Week

Past 6 Months

Recent Posts