Do you know what you're taking?

With good reason, we listen to our doctor's when they prescribe us a medication. Often, we get the little accompanying fact sheet with a prescription, but how many people read the whole thing? I certainly can say that I've read so little of those fact sheets that I couldn't even give you a general idea of what they include, beyond the first paragraph that says how many pills to take per dose and how many doses per day. I assume it lists other things like side effects, but I'm not sure myself.
Note: this post is really important, but long, so please click the read more link and finish it off.


The other day, I posted about some of my patients describing how they were told not to take supplements. I wanted to confirm this advice for myself and figure out what was going on, so after asking around, I was pointed to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the Australian drug regulator (so the American equivalent of the FDA). On their website, you can pull up information sheets to tell you all about any drug available in the country. Here's a link to get through the first couple steps straight to the search function.

First thing to notice: left of the field to enter your search text it has buttons to highlight for "PI", "CMI", or "both". Just use the both. Another thing to note: you have to spell the drug correctly. It took me a couple tries to remember the right spelling of tamoxifen.

Once you search, the next screen will bring up a list of all the trade names with that drug in it. Next to each, you'll find a PDF for the CMI and the PI. The difference is CMI stands for consumer medicine information, and PI stands for professional information. The CMI will be more similar to the sheets you get with your prescription, so if you're interested enough to be looking on this website, go ahead and click PI. In this example, I'll be referring to PI sheet for Tamoxen brand tamoxifen drug.

 It will tell you everything there is to know about the drug that researchers have had to report to the TGA. While there's lots interesting here, for this example, I want to draw your attention to the section "precautions." I'm just going to copy a couple quotes from the document here for you.

"An increased incidence of... cancer and uterine sarcoma... has been reported in association with tamoxifen treatment... Any patients receiving or having previously received TAMOXEN 20 who report abnormal gynaecological symptoms should be promptly investigated. In a large randomized trial in Sweden... an increased incidence of uterine cancer was notes." They then go on to describe that taking Tamoxen increased the risk of developing uterine cancer from 0.3% (observed in the control group) to 1.7% risk. So, not a huge risk, but definitely something to ask your doctor about. I suppose this is why a preemptive hysterectomy is becoming more common in conjunction with mastectomies.

Again, I'm not trying to get into fear mongering, it's just that I learned something new and wanted to equip everyone with that knowledge as well.