May is Better Hearing and Speech Month. The goal is to raise
awareness about hearing and speech problems, encouraging people to
analyze their own hearing and speech, and to take action if they think there
might be a problem. Treatment can then be given to improve the quality of
life in people with communication problems. 40 million Americans have
communication disorders. Today we will talk about speech therapy.
At least 40 million Americans suffer from chronic, long term
sleep disorders each year, and an additional 20 million experience
occasional sleeping problems. These disorders and the resulting sleep
deprivation interfere with work, driving, and social activities. Today we
will learn talk about risk factors and treatment of insomnia.
Many people struggle with seasonal allergies, brought on by the incoming spring weather. If you are dealing with a runny nose, itchy, watery eyes or constant congestion and a runny nose you know how annoying the symptoms can be.
Harvard's Health Blog gives several ideas for treatment including:
You can always ask your pharmacist or doctor which treatment you should try - every person has different needs.
Pharmacist Brad White R.Ph.
Lets not fool ourselves here, none of us have the perfect diet. Vitamins are a nutritional supplementation that you can add to your daily diet. It is difficult to make specific recommendations that fit for all people; you may be a teenager, a man or woman, or dealing with a heart condition or diabetes; each person has special health and nutritional needs. Below are several options that may suit your nutritional needs.
There are a few basics that everyone can take, simple and cost effective. Take a simple (or complex) multivitamin every day. A multivitamin daily dose could be from 1 to 6 tablets depending on the brand you choose. I would recommend that you take a multivitamin with food and try to spread multiple tablet dosages out over breakfast, lunch and dinner. By the way, if you will only take one vitamin supplement, this is the one to do because there is documented evidence that even the most basic multivitamin will reduce your risk of getting the common cold by over 20 percent!
EPA and DHA are the abbreviations for eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid. These two fatty acids are essential to our health and life. Just because the word fat is there doesn't mean it is bad for you. In fact the EPA and DHA in fish oil is responsible for many of the building blocks in tissue repair and growth. EPA and DHA regulate inflammation and prostaglandin production, improves cardiac risk, lowers bad cholesterol and has hundreds of other documented benefits (look for future posts). The best way to take fish oil is to consume the oil itself. Tips on easy ways of doing this include mixing it with your morning protein shake or your salad dressing. If you can't stand the thought of taking oil itself, capsules or liquigels are manufactured for easy use. I would recommend that you keep both types in the refrigerator and look for high potency products that are tested for pesticides and heavy metal contamination. Dosing is usually 1000mg twice a day.
Coenzyme Q10 is one of the main fuels for the mitochondria in your heart muscle. Your heart muscle is a busy muscle, and without it operating in top condition there can be problems. I have a 7 out of 10 chance of being right that CoQ10 is right for you. In the United States 69% of population is over weightand 30% are obese, both conditions are directly related to a deficiency of CoQ10 and as you have seen in other posts, coenzyme q10 is depleted by many classes of prescription mediations, like statin drugs. CoQ10 can give you an energy boost and improve cholesterol levels. If you are in perfect cardiac health or have some degree of heart disease you will do well to supplement to overcome deficiencies of coenzyme Q10. Recommended dosing starts at 100mg per day.
Probiotics are the good bacteria that colonize our gastrointestinal tracts and help us with digesting food and maintaining balance to prevent fungal and yeast overgrowth in our digestive system. Probiotics like acidophilus and bifidobacterium are essential factors in our immune system health. Supplementing bacteria like these improve gut terrain, and many people can benefit especially if you consume a high carbohydrate diet, carbonated beverages, alcohol , and antibiotic therapies. Probiotics are best taken on an empty stomach with a full glass of non chlorinated water. Yogurt doesn't cut it, it is not potent enough to provide benefits. Your money is better spent on capsules with 15 billon or more colony forming units taken once or twice a day.
Magnesium is such an overlooked mineral. Trace minerals are quickly depleted from the soils in the USA and are rarely replaced. Magnesium is responsible for over 300 metabolic reactions in our body and is essential to good health. Easily over 50% of the United States population is deficient in magnesium. Some of the benefits of magnesium in your body are: a muscle relaxant, decrease platelet aggregation, thins blood, blocks calcium uptake, relaxes blood vessels, improves cardiac contractibility, improves glucose handling. Where can you find magnesium in your diet? Dark green leafy vegetables. Your doctor may say that your magnesium levels are fine, but serum blood tests can be normal in presence of magnesium deficiency because serum is stealing form bones much like the blood steals calciumfrom bones resulting in osteoporosis. The best forms of magnesium are magnesium chelate and magnesium gylcinate 200 to 400mg daily.
If you have questions about vitamins, reach out to one of our pharmacists.
This articles's author Brad White, R.Ph
Working as a pharmacist in New Philadelphia for the last 20 years has provided me with an opportunity to meet and learn from thousands of patients. There have been a lot of opportunities to help improve the quality of life of patients, and those experiences have been very rewarding both personally and professionally. There are also those occasions when you are standing across from a person who is so desperate for help, for a solution, for anything that can ease their pain or make them feel better. Those are the challenging times that you wish you had the power and the knowledge to provide a remedy for what ails them.
Just last week I traveled to an educational pharmacy conference that shared developing research on a variety of topics in medicine, and one topic has me really excited! It is called Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN).
Cancer
Crohn’s Disease
Fibromyalgia
Multiple Sclerosis
Anti-Inflammatory
AIDS/HIV
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome
Posttraumatic Stress
Psoriasis and Eczema
Over the last several years there has been an explosion in research on LDN to treat a variety of autoimmune diseases. PubMed, a literature repository for the US National Library of Medicine, lists 230 published studies from respected academic organizations like Stanford, Harvard, Penn State, Brown University and the Mayo Clinic. LDN is most commonly used to treat Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue, Multiple Sclerosis, Psoriasis, and Autoimmune Thyroid Diseases. Additional research is being conducted on over 100 other health conditions.
Low-dose Naltrexone (LDN) therapy was developed in 1985 by Dr. Bernard Bihari, a Doctor of Internal Medicine, Psychiatry and Neurology. Dr. Bihari found that AIDS patients had 20% of the normal endorphin levels of healthy patients. Dr. Bihari’s key discovery was that 1% of the normal dose of naltrexone caused an unusual effect of a 300% increase in endorphin levels!
Endorphins are chemicals that interact with receptors in your brain that reduce the perception of pain. Endorphins also trigger a positive feeling in the body, often described as euphoric. This feeling can be accompanied by a positive and energizing outlook on life and a sense of well-being resulting in less pain. Low levels of endorphins are associated with the opposite effect: physical and emotional pain and depressed feelings. Naltrexone has several mechanisms of action that have an effect on opioid receptors that are distributed throughout the brain, spinal cord, nervous system, and digestive tract. LDN appears to enhance immune function and improve the inflammatory reaction.
Naltrexone was patented in 1967 approved by the FDA in 1984 for heroin addiction using a 50mg dose and in 1995 the FDA approved it for treatment of alcoholism. Dr. Bihari’s creative application of a medication that is not controlled by a pharmaceutical company has provided a platform for hundreds of independent research projects that may benefit millions of patients worldwide.
The mechanism of action increases endorphin release, and it appears these endorphins can modulate the immune response. More research needs to be done but LDN appears to have promising benefits in a variety of health conditions. On the other hand, higher doses like 50mg doses appear to overwhelm the receptors and negate the immune system effects.
LDN is a prescription therapy that requires you to work with a physician and your pharmacist. Your doctor will generally begin therapy at a low dose and increase gradually over several weeks until your condition has stabilized and you are side effect free. Doses start generally at 0.5mg and slowly titrate up depending on your health condition and side effect tolerance. Because a pharmaceutical company does not make LDN, prescriptions can only be filled by an accredited and licensed compounding pharmacy.
The most common side effects of LDN are sleep disturbances, often due to endorphin response, vivid dreams, or insomnia. Side effects generally resolve in four to seven days. Only 10% of the cases reported side effects for more than a week.
LDN has great potential with clinical research to support multiple immuno-modulated disease states. It is non-toxic and has a low side effect profile. It can be dosed both orally and topically and there is evidence to support use.
LDN doesn’t work for everyone and the slow titration in dose schedule is important, your pharmacist can work with you and your physician to help you achieve the optimal outcome. If you are in a position where you have tried multiple therapies and specialists searching for a solution to your health problems, then LDN may be an option you should learn more about. LDN is a cost effective therapy that promises to evolve in the next decade as more research is done to evaluate the benefits.
The Medicine Center Pharmacy in New Philadelphia is your resource in Northeast Ohio for LDN information. Brad White R.Ph. is a graduate of Purdue University School of Pharmacy and has experience with customized medication solutions and operates the only PCAB Accredited Compounding Pharmacy in East Central Ohio.
Epilepsy is a broad term used to describe people who suffer multiple seizures in their life time. Seizures are defined as sudden, uncontrolled electrical brain activity. Depending on how the brain looks at these electrical currents a person may change behavior, display abnormal movement or even lose consciousness. Low Dose Naltrexone has shown promise as an alternative treatment option for seizure disorders.
The LDN Research Trust released a documentary earlier this month that provides education for patients that are suffering from chronic pain and are dependent on opioid prescription medication.
Autoimmune conditions like Alzheimer’s Disease may be linked to chronic inflammation of nervous system. Does the future of new treatments focus on controlling inflammation and how can low dose naltrexone play a role?
Patients living with chronic pain are turning to low dose naltrexone as a solution to opioid medications to get their quality of life back to normal. NPR publishes a very well written article about LDN and cites both patient experience and references to clinical research for validation.
Want to learn more? Listen to our Health Matters Episode
Are you 50? Time to get tested and prevent colorectal cancer When she was 55 years old, Valerie B. made a promise to a total stranger. It may have saved her life.
“I was sitting in the doctor’s office for a mammogram,” the Atlanta woman says. “A lady there said she recently learned she had colon cancer. I knew nothing about it; nobody had ever told me to go get a colon test done. That woman in the doctor’s office urged me to get tested. I promised her I would. And I did.”
She made an appointment right away. During the test, Valerie’s doctor found and removed six polyps (abnormal growths) in her colon. Three were precancerous, meaning there was a good chance they could have turned into cancer if they had not been removed. “The doctor was really glad I was there,” she says. “He said ‘Why did you wait so long?’”
Screening is recommended for men and women beginning at age 50 and continuing until age 75. Among men and women combined, colorectal cancer is the second leading cancer killer in the United States. But it doesn’t have to be. Screening helps prevent the disease by finding polyps, so they can be removed before they turn into cancer. Polyps don’t always cause symptoms, so you may not know you have them. That is why getting a screening test is so important.
For 52-year-old Randy Talley, the path to screening was different, but the results were similar. His doctor strongly recommended that he get checked for colorectal cancer when he was 50. Polyps ran in his family—his mother had them— and both Randy and his mother had irritable bowel syndrome, a condition that can raise a person’s risk of getting colorectal cancer. Plus, he was at the age when screening is recommended.
It turned out that Randy had five polyps, all in an early, noncancerous stage. They were removed. “This testing is recommended for a good reason,” the Washington, DC, resident says. “You either experience a little discomfort with the test now, or you could face something a lot worse later in life, if you get colon cancer. So if you’re 50 or older, my advice is to get screened now. I am completely glad I got screened.”
There are several screening tests: colonoscopy, high-sensitivity fecal occult blood testing, and sigmoidoscopy. If you’re 50 or older, talk to your doctor about which is right for you.
Valerie, now 60, is a cheerleader for getting screened. “After my colonoscopy, all I did that year was talk to people and tell my story. I found that five family members over 50 weren’t tested. I begged them to go, and they all went.”
Most insurance plans and Medicare cover screening without a deductible or co-pay.
To learn more about colorectal cancer and screening, visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Web site for Screen for Life: National Colorectal Cancer Action Campaign at www.cdc.gov/ScreenForLife
It seems like there is a pharmacy on every corner; either free-standing or inside a grocery store or big box chain. Believe it or not, there are roughly 67,000 pharmacies in the United States.
Pharmacies continue to take a bigger role in healthcare. Overall that is great news for you because the pharmacy isn’t just about filling pill bottles. Pharmacies continue to offer more comprehensive services – everything from making sure that the medicine you take is right for you for preventative care and health monitoring.
These services make it more important than ever to have the right pharmacy and to make a change if you aren’t satisfied with the role your pharmacy is playing in your health care. Here are some of the top 5 reasons to consider switching pharmacies:
Switching pharmacies is easy! Let your pharmacist handle the transfers and you’ll be on the road to better health with the convenience of the Medicine Center Pharmacy.
February is Heart Health Month. During this month, the Medicine Center Pharmacy encourages our patients and our community to take practical steps to heart health. A few suggestions include:
If you have questions about heart health, we encourage you to talk to your doctor and pharmacist. The American Heart Association lists many ideas on how to live healthier - check out the link below.
Autoimmune diseases are a complex group of conditions in which the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy cells and tissues. While treatment options exist to manage symptoms, there is no known cure for autoimmune diseases. However, recent research has shed light on the potential benefits of Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) in managing these conditions. In this blog post, we'll explore some of the latest research findings on the use of LDN in autoimmune diseases.