Supplements or prescription drugs? Which to try when?
Let me preface my comments with this “disclaimer”: I am not a doctor, a pharmacist, nurse, or any sort of health care professional, so my comments here are strictly my opinions or understandings. You should NEVER quit taking or modify the way you are taking a prescription drug without consulting a doctor or other health care professional.
Don’t you hate going to a blog, whether you’re looking for the best diet pill you can find or information about some disease — only to find that the blog is simply hashed together material that’s half truth, half fiction, with no way to be sure about the difference? Well, that disclaimer above is so you’ll know exactly what you’re getting here — my opinions and what I’ve read/heard, but not “gospel truth” about anything medical. So don’t forget that!
To my question in the title — do you use supplements and/or prescription drugs for anything? Have you tried both or either for an ongoing health issue you may be facing, and if so, how has that done for you?
I bring all this up because my health exam last week (see the previous post here) showed that I have what’s called BPH — an enlarged prostate gland. The doctor has prescribed a very expensive prescription drug to treat the symptoms of it, even though he knows I have no health insurance to cover the cost.
But what puzzled me was this: In the course of the exam, he told me BPH can be treated with an over-the-counter supplement called “saw palmetto.” Yet when he mailed me the results of the blood tests which confirmed the BPH condition we had spoken about, he made no mention of saw palmetto, merely including the written prescription for the expensive drug.
Calling his office and speaking with his nurse has, so far, brought no callback from the doctor with any clarification.
For now, I’m going with the saw palmetto and foregoing the expensive prescription. Hopefully, I’ll get the confusion cleared up soon. Meanwhile, to echo that old television cliche: “Kids, under no circumstances try this at home.” Or something like that.
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