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Do not be duped by fraudulent online pharmacies

By admin on Saturday, July 11th, 2009 | No Comments

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The dawn of the Internet era has witnessed a revolution of sorts in marketing of different products and the cyberspace has assumed the role of a virtual superstore where an array of products can be bought sitting in the comfort of our homes.

And not just products, the Internet also opened a floodgate of services which include expert advise from specialists in their own fields. Of course, all this comes at a price but the stiff competition between different sites guarantees best deals and ensures that the customer continues to be king!

Online pharmacy has a special place in this scheme of things where numerous websites offer prescription drugs at unbelievable prices and promise generic equivalent of branded drugs. The same means that people no longer have to visit a drug store, and more importantly don’t have to get hassled when they can’t find the needed prescription drugs at a conventional drug store.

An online pharmacy also offers  greater availability of drugs for people who don’t live in a proximity of a  pharmacy. The ease of comparative shopping among many sites to find the best prices is also a big factor for the increasing popularity of these stores selling prescription drugs. There is no denying the fact that the boom of online pharmacy stores has definitely helped people, but this has not come without drawbacks. For example, it has been reported that several websites are selling poor quality drugs, and there have been more than one instance of fraud. No wonder, medical specialists and Internet experts always stress that prescription drugs should always be bought from a reputed online pharmacy, selling FDA approved  prescription drugs.

More and more customers in the United States are replacing their trip to a pharmacy with a click of the mouse where they have access to hundreds of websites offering online prescription drugs. Many of these stores selling prescription drugs have managed to earn the trust of their customers and the latter are doing regular dealings with them. However, in order to ensure that customers are not duped by this boom of online pharmacy stores, it is important to be cautious. For example, many online pharmacy stores require customers only to fill a questionnaire before ordering drugs. In this situation, there is no face to face interaction between the patient and the medical specialist, thereby bypassing direct medical supervision and physical examination, which undermines medical safeguards. It has been reported that due to this several patients have been on the receiving end of drug interactions and outdated drugs. The situation has become so alarming that FDA officials are investigating a number of these sites and plan to take legal action against any pharmacy indulging in the same.

Save yourself from being tricked

It isn’t unusual to come across several online pharmacy sites shouting ‘get online prescription drugs now- forget a doctor’ or ‘say goodbye to pain in an instant’ or ‘cure sugar with traditional herbs’. Learn not to get tricked by such statements. Consumers need to realize that many of these online drug stores are actively into unlawful prescribing, sell unapproved medical products and products marketed with fraudulent health claims.

Tips for using an online pharmacy:

With a view to ensue that online customers are given good quality and correct medicines, the US Pharmacopeia (USP) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have established quality control standards for all medications dispensed by pharmacies across the US. Some of the important tips are:

1)Never buy drugs from an online pharmacy that is willing to sell you medicines without a proper prescription or which sells drugs that are not FDA approved.

2)Avoid using an online pharmacy that does not offer access to a registered pharmacist to answer your questions.

3)Check with the NABP to see if the online pharmacy from which are going to order is in a good standing.

4)Don’t purchase drugs from foreign websites.

5)Avoid websites that promise a quick cure to serious diseases.

6)It is always wise to consult your physician before taking a drug from an online pharmacy.

7)It is important to verify if the online pharmacy from which you are ordering medicines is licensed to deliver the medications to the residents of your state.

Following the above mentioned tips can definitely be instrumental in saving yourself from being duped by online drugstores. Be wise and make the best of the convenience and benefits offered by genuine online drug stores, skirting the shady ones.

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A Step Closer to Drug Addiction and Phobia Treatment

By admin on Saturday, June 20th, 2009 | No Comments

Scientists are now looking into solving drug abuse cases by studying on a certain medication that could possibly be the most effective drug for treating addiction. This specific drug is also known to control phobias. The US Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory provides further evidence that a drug known as D- cycloserine could play a role in helping to extinguish the craving behaviors associated with drug abuse, or specifically, with the addiction to psychotropic drugs. Their study found that mice treated with D-cycloserine were less likely to spend time in an environment where they had previously been trained to expect cocaine than mice treated with a placebo.

A graduate student from Stony Brook University working under Brookhaven Laboratory, Carlos Bermeo said that since the association between drugs and the places where they are used can trigger craving and/or relapse in humans, a medication that could aid in the reduction or even extinction of such responses could be a powerful tool in the treatment of addiction.

The D-cycloserine was originally developed as an antibiotic. But this drug has also shown to extinguish conditioned fear in pre-clinical (animal) studies, and has been successfully tested in human clinical trials for the treatment of acrophobia or fear of heights. This finding led the researchers to wonder whether D-cycloserine could extinguish drug seeking behaviors as well. Last 2006, a group of scientists not associated with the Brookhaven Lab tested this hypothesis in rats. They found out that D-cycloserine facilitated the extinction of “cocaine conditioned place reference”– in which the tendency for the animals to spend more time in a chamber where they had been trained to expect cocaine than in a chamber where they had no access to the drug whatsoever. This study builds on the previous work and adds information on the drug dose effect, the lasting properties of the treatment, and the locomotor effects of this compound.

In the study, the group worked with C57bL/c mice. The animals were first trained to receive cocaine in a specific environment. Once conditioned, place preference was established (animals willingly spent more time in a cocaine-paired environment than in a neutral environment), the mice were treated with either D-cycloserine or saline and were allowed to spend forty minutes in either the previously cocaine-paired environment in which the drug was no longer available, or the neutral environment. According to one of their researchers, this paradigm would be analogous to a clinical approach where the addict is returned to their natural environment where drug use was done, but this time with no drug available. He added that reduced seeking of the drug in the same environment—that is the extinction behavior—is a great indicator of future success in treatment and reduced chance of relapse.

However, the researchers said that it is important to remember that these are very preliminary results from a small animal study, and much further research will be required before testing this drug in humans. Nonetheless, it is inspiring to know that this drug may show promise in treating cocaine addiction that continues to take a toll on society and for which no pharmacological treatment currently exists. Such research studies would take us a step closer in treating phobias, as well as drug abuse.

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The Social Killer

By admin on Saturday, May 16th, 2009 | No Comments

social anxiety

Scared to go out to a meeting to speak to a client?  Need to deliver a speech but feel like fainting at the thought of going in front of the class to present?  Scared to attend a social gathering for no apparent reason?  You might be suffering from social anxiety disorder.

 Social anxiety disorder, also known as social phobia, is a kind of mental disorder where the sufferer experiences a severe or unreasonable fear of social gatherings where there is a possibility that one may get embarrassed or ridiculed.   Most of the time, these anxieties arise from an intense fear of being closely watched or scrutinized – from the simple things like the way they dress, talk or act; to important job functions like performing in front of a crowd, giving a presentation, or finishing an interview for a job application.  This kind of phobia gives sufferers a feeling of being trapped or shut away from the world.

 They say social anxiety disorder is closely related to shyness.  However social phobia differs in the sense that this disrupts normal socializing functions.  It is true that everyone goes through a stage of shyness in their life, overcoming it is a different thing.  When it becomes too much that it interrupts your daily life and relationships to the point where you are sick with worry, it is time to seek counsel.  It is good to know the signs and symptoms of social anxiety disorder to be able to determine and treat this said condition before it worsens.

 People with social phobia manifest 2 basic kinds of symptoms: emotional and physical.  The emotional symptoms include: an intense fear of being in situations in which you don’t know people, fear of situations in which you may be judged, worrying about embarrassing or humiliating yourself, fear that others will notice that you look anxious, anxiety that disrupts your daily routine, work, school or other activities, avoiding doing things or speaking to people out of fear of embarrassment, avoiding situations where you might be the center of attention.  The physical symptoms include: Blushing, profuse sweating, trembling or shaking, nausea, stomach upset, difficulty talking, shaky voice, muscle tension, confusion, palpitations, diarrhea, cold and clammy hands, and difficulty making eye contact.

 Basically, this phobia manifests a symptom of being overly anxious around other people.  Sufferers think that other people are more confident that they are, that other people are better them.  They feel uncomfortable being around people that it makes it difficult for them to eat, drink, work, asking questions, asking for dates, even going to the toilet, when other people are around.

 The good news is that there is a cure for this condition.  For the past 20 years, a combination of talk therapy and medications has proven most helpful to limit the effects, if not cure, this mental condition.  Certain anti-depressants (Paroxetine, Sertraline and Venlafaxine), anti-anxiety medications, and beta blockers are used to help Socio-phobic people to balance certain chemicals in the brain and minimize panic attacks during periods of heightened anxiety.  Talk therapy teaches people with social anxiety disorder to react differently to situations that trigger their anxiety.  The therapist helps the patient confront the negative feelings about social situations and the fear about being judged by others. Patients learn how their thinking patterns add to the symptoms of social anxiety disorder and how to change their thinking so the symptoms begin to lessen.

 To be shy is quite normal, everybody has gone through a similar phase.  Getting past that stage is the difficult part.  Ultimately, it ends up to building your confidence to a certain level for you to be comfortable enough to move normally.  In case you’ve been diagnosed as a socio-phobic, it is nothing to be ashamed of.  With a little bit of therapy, proper medication, and enough support from people who believe in you, you’ll slowly be able to do socialize and function normally within a group without being too anxious.

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