Online Pharmacy Medicine Blog

Doctors are now advising healthy men over 55 who are regularly screened for prostate cancer to consider taking the drug finasteride (sold in generic form and as Proscar) to prevent their likelihood of getting the disease. About 186,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year.

Finasteride is already prescribed for urinary problems from enlarged prostates, but is only now being prescribed as a cancer preventive.

The good news is that in men who are regularly screened with PSA blood tests, the drug can reduce the odds of getting the cancer by 25 percent.

The bad news is cost. Finasteride costs $2 to $3 per pill based on current U.S. retail prices — which amounts to about $90 per month in costs. What’s more, many insurers currently do not cover the drug for cancer prevention.

Fortunately for ePharmacies.com members, finasteride/Proscar is available for as little as $0.80 per pill from licensed online pharmacy in our network. That’s about $24 per month — a lot less than U.S. retailers charge.

Finasteride works by shrinking the prostate and levels of testosterone, a hormone that spurs cancer growth. This can lead to sexual side effects — specifically, a reduction in the man’s sexual desire. In a lower dosage, finasteride is sold as the hair-loss drug Propecia.

Usually, when we think of young men taking Viagra, we imagine that they’re guys who don’t really need the medication for erectile dysfunction — they’re just looking for a performance boost in the bedroom.

Now imagine if you heard a young man was taking Viagra every day. What would you think then?

Well, if we’ve learned anything in the online pharmacy business over the past few years, it’s that appearances can be deceiving. And in the case of a professional baseball player named Brian Bocock, they definitely are.

Here’s Brian’s story:

Bocock … had a circulation disorder last June that caused three fingers to turn blue and forced him to miss the rest of the season.

“The doctors had me on baby aspirin, anti-inflammatories, blood thinners, and, well “… Viagra,” Bocock said.

Bocock said he took a low dosage, only 25 milligrams, but had to take it every day.

That made a trip to the pharmacy quite interesting: “I’d clean the place out. A few times, I took all they had.”

The primary indication of Viagra is treatment of erectile dysfunction, and it is now standard treatment for erectile dysfunction in all settings, including diabetes. In addition to erectile dysfunction, Viagra is also effective in treating pulmonary arterial hypertension. For treatment of this disease, it relaxes the arterial wall, leading to decreased pressure on the arteries.

Lipitor is the best-selling drug in the United States, and is generally considered safe and effective in treating high cholesterol.

But if you are one of the millions of Americans — especially seniors — who are taking multiple drugs for chronic conditions, you may be unaware of the interaction risks you face by taking Lipitor in combination with other drugs.

Lipitor interacts with more than 600 drugs, including erythromycin, niacin (vitamin B3), simvastatin, and metronidazole. In some cases, the interactions can produce serious complications and side effects.

As the Gloucester Daily Times reports, physicians should be aware of, and should inform you of, such interactions. But if an individual is being treated by a number of specialists, sometimes these warnings can slip through the cracks.

As the paper reports:

Consumers should know the name of every medication the doctor has prescribed, what each medication looks like, and be sure to look at every medication before ingesting it. Patients should not be afraid to ask questions if a medication looks unfamiliar. Sometimes, it’s just that a generic substitution has been made, but it’s always best to be sure before swallowing.

Keeping a written list of all medications taken, including dietary supplements, herbal preparations and non-prescription drugs can help the doctor prescribe more safely. Ask the doctor, as each prescription is written, what the name of the drug is, the correct strength or dosage, what it is being prescribed for, and if there are any interactions or side effects to watch for. Write the information down, as many drug names sound alike. If you are in the hospital, and unable to do this yourself, pre-arrange to have a family member or friend do this for you, if possible.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, medication errors injure more than one million people per year in America, and while there are still far too many medication errors in hospitals, there has been a recent upsurge in home settings, so being one’s own advocate is important in preventing errors, and saving lives.

By becoming a member of ePharmacies.com, you can gain access to Web tools including a pill identifier — which helps you identify medications based on photographs of the drugs — and a drug interaction checker, which allows you to input your current drug regimen and learn the potential interaction risks.

These tools act as an important safety net should your doctor or pharmacist neglect to catch a potential risk. We encourage you to join ePharmacies.com today!

Hundreds of patients die every year in the United States after taking powerful prescription painkillers like OxyContin. Now the FDA is taking action to prevent this drug and others from being prescribed too cavalierly by physicians. It plans to only permit doctors who have completed a specific training program to prescribe a list of 24 narcotic drugs.

According to eFluxMedia, the FDA has previously avoided restricting physicians’ prescribing habits:

The FDA avoids interfering with the practice of medicine because doctor behavior is governed by state medical boards. However, the agency still tries to provide doctors with the best and most current information, and then allows them to decide how to use it. It’s interesting to see that most of the drugs withdrawn over the last 20 years were taken off shelves because doctors continued to use them in a way the FDA strongly disapproved.

Dr. John K. Jenkins of the FDA told the New York Times:

“What we’re talking about is putting in place a program to try to ensure that physicians prescribing these products are properly trained in their safe use, and that only those physicians are prescribing those products,” Dr. Jenkins said in a news conference on Monday. “This is going to be a massive program.”

OxyContin, an extended-release formulation of oxycodone, was first introduced to the United States market by Purdue Pharma in 1996. One of the reasons for its increased populariy — and abuse — has been Purdue’s aggressive marketing of the drug to physicians.

This has included claiming, inaccurately, that the drug was less addictive than other opiate drugs. Purdue also marketed the drugs to general practitioners, who in many cases were less knowledgeable about the drug than specialists. Purdue has pleaded guilty to felony charges for its misleading claims; now the FDA hopes to increase its control over the doctor side of the equation.

While this program is a step in the right direction, it will likely do little to end the problem of doctor shopping — whereby patients attain prescriptions for painkillers from a variety of physicians.

Drugs that affect your metabolism are the top-selling prescription drugs, according to a new report by the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality. This category of medications includes popular drugs to lower cholesterol, control diabetes, and control weight gain.

These drugs accounted for $38 billion of the $208.1 billion spent on prescription medications in the United States — or 18.3 percent of total prescription expenses by adults.

The top-selling drug in the United States, by a wide margin, is the cholesterol medication Lipitor. Lipitor is used along with diet to help lower “bad” cholesterol (LDL) and raise “good” cholesterol (HDL) in the blood. It’s part of a group of medications known as “statins”. Lipitor works by reducing the amount of cholesterol made by the liver.

You can read a summary of the study here.

Metoprolol succinate extended release tablets are in short supply at many U.S. pharmacies after some makers of the generic beta blocker had to recall their product. Fortunately, the drug is still available online. Metoprolol succinate is available under brand names such as Toprol XL and Betaloc CR.

Metoprolol succinate is prescribed for the treatment of conditions related to the heart and blood vessels, including high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, and angina.

The FDA warns that it can be dangerous to stop taking metoprolol succinate suddenly:

Following abrupt cessation of therapy with certain beta-blocking agents, exacerbations of angina pectoris and, in some cases, myocardial infarction have occurred. When discontinuing chronically administered Metoprolol Succinate extended-release tablets, particularly in patients with ischemic heart disease, the dosage should be gradually reduced over a period of 1 to 2 weeks and the patient should be carefully monitored … Because coronary artery disease is common and may be unrecognized, it may be prudent not to discontinue Metoprolol Succinate extended-release tablets therapy abruptly even in patients treated only for hypertension.

So if you’re having difficulty finding metoprolol succinate, don’t stop taking it! Join ePharmacies.com today and order it from a licensed online pharmacy.