It's a shame!

[Sugarpants]

Ok ladys,
It took me two months to get insurance and i had to call my case worker
about fifty times to get her to mention that there is a emergancy medcaid number to call if you can't get your insurance to cover ZOFRAN!
I have never been treated like this in my life,and my doctor says
she has never been treated like this either..Our friend Mr.Bush cut out
a few things to make our life better.
So when your government fails you again and again,we have to get tough and make them realize that we are suffering and there has got to be a better solution to this madness..
Maybe a herb out there that will not harm our organs.
I hear zofran does damage to the liver.Why do they give us something
that would harm us?FDA has something to do with it?
They don't want people to get better.
They give you something to cure you but you get five other things wrong with your body when you take the meds..

I just had to vent..Thank you ...

[RebeccaM]

Just wondering where you got the information that Zofran damages the liver. I haven't heard that. Any details you have would be appreciated.

[dbarr]

I saw this post and wondered about the liver damage as well. I went on to the website for the company (forget the name - did a google search) that markets Zofran, and looked into the research/ side effects information. Of course, they don't list Hyperemesis as a reason for prescribing it - just for use w/ chemo and for post operation. There was something about liver problems, I think for the chemo patients. But I wonder if the liver problems result from dehydration, vomiting, starvation prior to taking Zofran or in cases where the Zofran just wasnt effective. It wasn't so clear that the Zofran was the cause of the liver problems. But it definitely warrants more research - I was just skimming this information very quickly.

At any rate, the politics of the issue do infuriate me. The FDA doesn't approve anything for pregnant mothers. Insurance companies fear litigation, and won't go out on a limb. Doctor's fear litigation and don't want to prescribe anything. Insurance companies want HG to be justified, so we need to be totally dehydrated before they'll approve tx. The medication is ridiculously priced. Don't get me going on the Bush administration and their healthcare stance - and the kickbacks they get from insurance companies!! And am I the only one who has thought that if men had to suffer HG, it would be a whole other ballgame???

[chichie]

Can I answer one year later?...

You're right about the FDA but it is explained by historical events, cases of dangerous adverse effects on drugs dedicated to pregnant women yet on the market. Unfortunately for us, hg sufferers, their aim is less to cure you than to prevent you from taking something dangerous.

Nevertheless, it is theorically possible to put on the market a drug indicated for pregnancy. In theory only, I insist, because for that, the industry has to provide clinical trials on very large cohorts of pregnant women with HG to evidence the safety and the efficacy of the product, and as a consequence to get the authorization from the FDA... It is so expensive and risky that it would probably never happen... Pharmaceutical industry is an industry, that is to say a profitable organization.

So, to me, we have 3 keys of hope:
- public (or society) research, with universities or foundations like yours.
- one scenario of dream (but why not?): industry put a new drug on the market dedicated to another indication and physicians, by practicing, realise it cures so well HG... It is not impossible at all and it's probably what happened with Zofran about which I ear so much on your forum (I live in France so I had to do without).
- last possibility, less probable than the preceeding one (but still why not?): you girls make such a terrific clash in media that they use our cause for their advertising and for their image. It's not profitable to work on some treatment against malaria but they do, because you can see it on all TV. Why not us?...

I never thought like you "if a men had HG...", but I often told to myself, if only the wife of a big scientific boss of the pharmaceutical industry had HG...