News

We hope you and yours having a wonderful “germ exchange” this Holiday Season.  We give hugs and kisses and pass around lots of germs—especially bacteria and viruses.  Lots of our patients are enjoying the same “germ exchange” and will be seeking our advice.   Let’s discuss the most annoying symptom,...

I got an e-mail message this past week from one of my former Physician Assistant students:  A pharm question for you: Are there any major differences between doxycycline monohydrate and doxy hyclate? Many patients wind up with GI side effects and call in stating they can’t tolerate the medicine....

Last week we discussed the three phases that our hair cycles through.  The telogen phase is when the hair is “at rest”. Telogen effluvium (TE) results from changes in follicular cycling that leads to the excessive shedding of telogen hairs. A wide variety of endogenous and exogenous factors have...

As this seasoned pharmacist gets older a lot of changes in the hairline have occurred.  When my barber cuts my hair, the trimmings are a lot whiter and the pile seems to be smaller.  We get questions about hair loss, and could some of the drugs we dispense cause...

Red yeast rice (RYR) (Monascus purpureus) is a nutraceutical that lowers LDL-C levels by 20 to 30 percent.  Red yeast rice is a fermented rice product that has been used in Chinese cuisine (like Peking duck) and medicinally to promote “blood circulation”. Because it is a “natural product “patients...

Coenzyme Q-10 has been touted for everything from eye disease, heart disease to HIV . Most of the time we are using it for people who complain about muscle pain while on a statin for cholesterol management.  Many of our patients complain about muscle aches, some of them are...

We pharmacists frequently dispense antibiotics, and sometimes we question the rationale. Now that the fluoroquinolones are very cheap, clinicians seem to jump on them. The current resistance rate for Strep pneumo (respiratory infections) for azithromycin (Z-pak) is around 47%. The current resistance rate for E. coli (urinary tract infections)...