In everyday language depression refers to any downturn in mood, which may be relatively transitory and perhaps due to something trivial. This is differentiated from Clinical depression which is marked by symptoms that last two weeks or more and are so severe that they interfere with daily living. Read more here be depressed
Hi Everyone,
With the potential side effects associated, I am not sure if this is really a good drug to take. Not necessarily for health issues, but
for the fact that I may not have the control that most of us take for granted.
…”Side effects include gas, the urgent need to have a bowel movement, oily bowel movements, oily discharge or spotting with bowel
movements, an increased frequency of bowel movements, and the inability to control bowel movements…”
Joe Medina, CPhT
————
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved orlistat capsules as an
over-the-counter (OTC) treatment for overweight adults. The drug,
whose brand name is Xenical, had previously been approved in 1999 as a
prescription weight loss aid. The OTC preparation will have a lower
dosage than prescription Xenical and will be produced and sold by
GlaxoSmithKline under the name of Alli.
Unlike appetite suppressants, orlistat (Xenical) works as a weight
loss aid by acting upon the function of the gastrointestinal tract.
The drug binds to an enzyme known as gastrointestinal lipase and
inhibits the action of this enzyme, which plays a role in breaking
down fats for absorption in the GI tract. As a result, up to 30% of
ingested fat is not absorbed by the body.
Orlistat is recommended only for people 18 years of age and over in
combination with a diet and exercise regimen. People who have
difficulties with the absorption of food or who are not overweight
should not take orlistat. Overweight is defined by the U.S. National
Institutes of Health as having a body mass index (BMI) of 27 or greater.
Orlistat can be taken up to three times a day, with each
fat-containing meal. The drug may be taken during the meal or up to
one hour after the meal. If the meal is missed or is very low in fat
content, the medications should not be taken. Because of its
interference with absorption of fat from the GI tract, the absorption
of the fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K) may also be affected in
people taking orlistat. It is recommended that those taking orlistat
also take a daily multivitamin supplement containing these vitamins.
The most common side effects of orlistat (Xenical) are changes in
bowel habits. These include gas, the urgent need to have a bowel
movement, oily bowel movements, oily discharge or spotting with bowel
movements, an increased frequency of bowel movements, and the
inability to control bowel movements. Women may also notice
irregularities in the menstrual cycle while taking orlistat. Side
effects are most common in the first few weeks after beginning to take
orlistat. In some people the side effects persist for as long as they
are taking the drug.
People with diabetes, thyroid conditions, who have received an organ
transplant, or who are taking prescription medications that affect
blood clotting should check with their physician before using OTC
orlistat (Alli), since drug interactions with certain medications are
possible.
So you’re finding yourself thirsty all the time — a lot more than usual. Or you’ve been really, really tired lately. Can’t seem to get
enough sleep.
Maybe you’ve dropped a bunch of weight — without even trying. Funny, but these days, it seems you always have to go pee, even when you’ve just gone.
You dismiss it all as just something you’re going through. Somethingthat will pass.
Well, it could be that you’ve developed something that’s going tostick around for the rest of your life.
You could be one of the almost 250 million people around the world who has diabetes. A third of those people aren’t even aware they have the condition. Forty-six per cent of them are between 40 and 59 years old.
Quick facts 2007 2025
World population (billions) 6.6 7.9
Number of people aged 20-79 years with diabetes (millions) 246 380
World diabetes prevalence (%) 7.5 8.0
Source: Diabetes Atlas: International Diabetes Federation
Two million of them are Canadian.
Diabetes — or complications from the disease — now kills 3.8 million people a year or about the same number as HIV/AIDS.
(Read the article)
Introduction
In today’s pharmacy setting, we are finding the dispensing of a greater diversity of medications for specific disease states. With advanced technologies and introduction of new classification of drugs, the Pharmacy has become a blessing for those in need.
Among new medications to hit the market in recent years are medications used in the treatment of Clinical Depression. Clinical Depression is one of the most common and most serious mental health issues facing individuals today. It is to be hoped that this CE offering will enlighten you as a Pharmacy Technician and give a better understanding and empathy of individuals with Clinical Depression.
Moods
In most situations, an individual’s outlook on life is based on one’s mood. Mood is a sustained emotional feeling that allows us a perception of our surroundings and in doing so, brings us sadness and joy as part of our everyday lives. When we talk about “moods,” we are not just talking about emotional feelings. Positive moods are more than just “happy” or “good” feelings — they tend to be accompanied by feelings of physical comfort, a sense of contentment with our lives, and more energy. Similarly, negative moods are more than just sad or angry feelings — they tend to be accompanied by feelings of physical discomfort, lack of energy and other physical complaints.
Normal moods or feelings are as follows:
- Joy or elation is a universal human response generally linked to success and achievement. This event allows an individual to be happy and content.
-Sadness or normal depression is a universal human response to disappointment, or other situation. Sadness can also be transient periods associated with certain events such as holidays and anniversary’s.
-Grief is a universal human response due to a significant loss, as a death of a loved one, separation, and disappointment. Grief can also be seen during times of catastrophes such as the World Trade Center terrorist attack. In most cases, individuals will go through a grief
cycle before finding resolution. (Read the article)
Hi Everyone,
Tech Lectures is proud to present its TL Series of old CE offerings
offered in the past by Tech Lectures. Our next TL Series will be on
Depression. This informative CE Offering allows us a look at
Depression and treatment protocols.
As author of these, you may use them individually or share them with
fellow Pharmacy Technician’s or students studying to become Pharmacy
Technicians.
Long time no see!!! I know it’s been a while since I posted any thing
But I do read the messages!!! I’m glad to see that you have kept up
your site it is very helpful especially to those who are just starting
out in the world of pharmacy techs!!! I know it helped me a lot!!! I
was wondering if there is any website or even a book that would have a
list of commonly used CII and CIII drugs? We have been looking at some
sites but none really have a list or they only have the top 10? if you
or anyone on tech lectures can help with this I would greatly
appreciate it!!! Have a great day!!!
Weight loss doesn’t have to be dramatic to help the health of people
with type 2 diabetes, a new study shows.
The study, called Look AHEAD (Action for Health in Diabetes), included
5,145 people with type 2 diabetes.
The key finding: Losing a modest amount of weight — about 8% –
reaped big health rewards, including better blood sugar control and
less need for diabetes and blood pressure drugs.
“We’re encouraged, based on our experience with Look AHEAD, that many
overweight individuals with type 2 diabetes are able to achieve and
maintain 7% to 10% or greater weight loss over the course of one
year,” researcher Mark Espeland, PhD, tells WebMD.
Espeland works in the public health sciences division of Wake Forest
University’s medical school.
Weight Loss and Type 2 Diabetes
In type 2 diabetes, the body doesn’t respond properly to insulin, a
hormone that controls blood sugar. Being overweight or obese makes
people more likely to develop type 2 diabetes.
Look AHEAD participants first weighed in, got checkups, and took
exercise tests. Then they were randomly split into two similar groups.
Participants in one group got an intensive lifestyle makeover to help
them lose at least 7% of their body weight in the study’s first year.
They attended dozens of group meetings, ate portion-controlled diets,
and got help from behavioral psychologists and exercise specialists.
Their portion-controlled diets included liquid meal replacements or
structured meal plans. Those participants were encouraged to walk or
get other physical activity at home.
For comparison, participants in the other group got standard care,
education, and support for their type 2 diabetes, with few group
meetings and no specific diet or exercise plan.
Weight Loss Diabetes Results
In a year, participants in the intensive lifestyle program lost 8.6%
of their body weight, boosted their aerobic fitness by 21%, improved
their blood sugar control, and cut back on their need for diabetes and
blood pressure medications.
Those in the comparison group lost less than 1% of their body weight.
But they did upgrade their fitness somewhat, though not as much as
those in the lifestyle program.
“Many markers of health improved in both groups,” Espeland tells WebMD.
Look AHEAD will continue to see if the short-term results hold up over
time. “This is the primary reason for Look AHEAD,” says Espeland.
Many Ways to Lose Weight
Linda Surks remembers her son Jason as a good-natured kid who made
friends easily. “He was always compliant and accommodating, and just a
real pleasant person,” she said.
So when Linda and her husband, Mark, got a call telling them their son
Jason, a 19-year-old sophomore at Rutgers University, was in the
hospital, they had no idea what to expect.
“We thought he had come down with something and really didn’t have any
idea when we got to the hospital,” Surks said.
They were told their son had died of a drug overdose.
“It was a double whammy,” she explained. “To hear that your child has
passed away, but to hear it happened the way it did was a total shock.
I had no clue he was abusing.”
That’s because Jason didn’t buy typical street drugs from some corner
dealer. He got his fix from the Internet, the latest front in the war
on drugs.
“After we collected his belongings from the university we went through
his computer and we found some Mexican pharmacy Web sites that he had
visited,” Surks said. “We also found some evidence of an account that
he had with one of these pharmacies.”
Jason’s death was a tragic irony for Linda, who works for the National
Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. “I work in prevention,” she
said. “That’s a pretty telling statement to have to make — that I
know what to look for, I know how to talk to my kids about drugs and
he really kept it very well hidden from us.”
Lethal and Addictive
What most young people don’t know is that prescription drugs like
Xanax, when abused, can be as addictive and lethal as heroin.
“There’s no fear of prescription drugs,” said Steve Liga, executive
director of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence of
Middlesex County, N.J.
Liga said the Internet has the potential to change the way the younger
generation gets hooked on drugs. “What we used to see before the
Internet was that prescription drugs were a later-stage addiction,” he
explained. These users typically worked their way up through
marijuana, cocaine and heroin, and were considered hardcore addicts
who stole their drugs from a pharmacy or diverted them from a doctor.
“What’s happening now with the Internet is that it’s almost flipped,”
Liga said. “We have people who never dreamed of using heroin or
cocaine, but they have no problem taking an Adderall.”
Impossible to Trace
Law enforcement agencies now face the daunting task of taking down
dealers who are almost impossible to trace, because they conduct their
business and then disappear into cyberspace.
In just a few years, the number of Web sites selling potentially
dangerous drugs without a prescription has increased exponentially.
Right now, you can buy drugs like OxyContin, Vicodin, and Xanax with
your credit card from more than 1,000 Web sites and have them
delivered directly to your door. And they are the real thing.
So how easy is it to get to one of these sites? Do you have to be a
savvy insider? Drug Enforcement Administration agent Tim Stover took
“Nightline” on a tour of the Internet-based drug world.
Agent Stover started with a simple Web search of “no prescription
hydrocodon,” which quickly yielded 141,000 listings. He then
demonstrated how easy it was to submit an order. After selecting the
drugs he wanted to purchase, he was asked to answer 10 simple
questions and was then asked to submit his credit card information.
“From the time that we put our answers in here we’ve had drugs that
we’ve ordered — at 2 o’clock in the afternoon on a Thursday –
delivered to us at 10 a.m. on Friday,” said Stover. “So it’s a very
quick, very efficient process.”
It’s as easy as ordering a book online: Prescription-strength drugs
are available without a prescription. All you need is a credit card
and a craving. And you don’t even have to muster the courage to deal
with someone face to face who may want to hurt you.
“It’s all done from the comfort of your home,” explained Stover, “and
… the anonymity of the Internet.”
In other words, you can potentially buy these drugs online without
ever exposing who you really are. And aggressive advertising in the
form of pop-ups, cookies and mass e-mails means you don’t even have to
search for the Web sites online; they will come to you.
A Massive Operation
It’s a huge operation with no bricks and mortar involved. There are no
buildings or person-to-person meetings because it’s all done
digitally. The dealers collect the information online, package the
drugs, and send them out via overnight delivery.
“I mean, literally, people can do this and perpetuate these crimes
throughout the world,” said Stover.
Many of these Web sites are located in countries like Ukraine, Latvia
and Mexico, where it’s perfectly legal to buy and sell these drugs
without prescriptions. So, even if law enforcement could find the
dealers, they couldn’t arrest them.
That’s why the DEA has successfully tracked and busted only a few
Internet prescription-drug trafficking rings.
In Texas a recent drug bust resulted in a number of indictments. Soon
after, there was a noticeable drop in activity on related Web sites.
But within weeks, the online ads were back. And to be sure, business
is booming again.
“It’s because of the anonymity, because of the ease of putting up
these Web sites and taking them down, because of the global nature of
the Internet, and how they can move money, and move information,”
Stover said.
“It’s tremendously challenging.”
Supply and Demand
Historically, attempts at decreasing the supply of drugs have rarely
worked. Growers, manufacturers and dealers always find new ways to
produce and distribute drugs, so experts realize it is important to
work on decreasing the demand.
“The Internet blew the lid off prescription drugs,” said Liga, of the
National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. “It’s a new
phenomenon and there isn’t any research to say what works and what
doesn’t.” When it comes to prevention, Liga teaches students that
prescription drug abuse is serious, and he hopes they will spread the
word to their friends.
Come one, come all: After years of shortages and confusion, this fall
promises plenty of flu vaccine to go around — up to 132 million doses,
more than the nation has ever produced.
The ample supplies have the government urging vaccinations not just
for people at highest risk of dying from influenza, but for anyone who
wants to avoid a week of aching misery.
“Flu is a formidable foe,” Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday. “It is not an
illness we should be complacent about.”
But new CDC data show only a fraction of people who need flu shots the
most get them, including just one in five babies and toddlers. And
there’s wide geographic variation, with Rhode Island reporting the
most high-risk adults vaccinated and Nevada the fewest.
Shots aren’t the only option. Wednesday, the government ruled that
it’s safe for younger kids than ever before to try a nasal-spray
vaccine called FluMist. Once only an option for people ages 5 to 49,
FluMist now can be used by children as young as 2.
Flu usually peaks in February, so a winter vaccination isn’t too late.
Still, Gerberding advised seeking vaccine early in case flu begins
striking before the usual November.
Indeed, there already are reports of sick schoolchildren in Hawaii,
although the geographic distance makes it impossible to predict if
that signals an unusually early flu season for the rest of the country.
Perhaps of more concern, CDC is closely monitoring whether a new
strain that emerged near the end of Australia’s flu season will cause
illness here — a strain that this year’s vaccine doesn’t specifically
target.
Each year’s vaccine contains protection against three influenza
strains — two Type A strains, an H1N1 and an H3N2 version, plus a
milder Type B — that experts predict will cause the most illness. The
vaccine isn’t always a perfect match, and this year’s contains a
different H3N2 version than the newly emerging one, nicknamed
H3N2/Brisbane-like.
Get vaccinated anyway, Gerberding stressed. The other two strains in
the vaccine are causing illness around the world, and even if the
newer one travels here, too, the vaccine should provide some
cross-protection.
Every year, flu infects up to 20 percent of the population, causes the
hospitalization of 200,000 people and kills 36,000.
Who’s at highest risk? Anyone over 50 or under 5; people of any age
who have asthma, heart disease, weakened immune systems or other
chronic illnesses; and pregnant women.
Vaccine also is particularly recommended for relatives and caregivers
of those people, and health care workers — people who may be robust
enough to recover themselves, but could infect the more vulnerable
before they realize they’re ill.
“The day before you become sick, you’re already excreting the virus,”
warned Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University, vice president
of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.
That equals 218 million people who should be vaccinated each year.
Nowhere near that many seek vaccine. Last year, about 18 million of
the nearly 121 million doses produced weren’t used and had to be
thrown away.
But the CDC’s new estimates of how many high-risk patients get
vaccinated, gleaned from public-health surveys, shed new light on the
most troubling gaps.
People 65 and older are most likely to get vaccinated, 69 percent
during the 2005-2006 flu season, the latest count available.
But that’s still well under the national goal of vaccinating 90
percent of seniors — even though Medicare provides them flu shots for
free.
Just over a third of 50- to 64-year-olds are getting vaccinated, and
just 30 percent of high-risk younger adults, CDC found.
Flu vaccine is a little more complicated for young children, because
they need two doses a month apart the very first year they’re
inoculated. Just 21 percent of youngsters ages 6 months to 2 years
were fully vaccinated, and just over one in 10 who needed two doses
got both, CDC reported.
If a young child missed that necessary second dose last year, health
officials are recommending that he or she make it up this year with
two shots.
In a society where chronic obesity runs rampant, life is becoming
faster and faster-paced, and medication is the solution to almost
everything, Adderall is becoming a prevalent off-label diet pill for many.
Adderall contains four different types of amphetamines and is often
called amphetamine mixed salts. It is normally prescribed to those
diagnosed with attention deficit disorder - with or without
hyperactivity - and narcolepsy.
Adderall may help develop focus amd concentration, as well as decrease
fatigue, but the side effects include loss of appetite, weight loss
and insomnia.
“After six hours after taking the drug, I would feel slightly groggy,
the way I sometimes get in the early afternoon when my morning coffee
wears off. But when I’d lie down for an afternoon nap, I couldn’t (go
to) sleep,” said Joshua Foer, a freelance writer for Slate Magazine
who took Adderall as an experiment.
Although the purpose of a drug may be to help someone focus, people
are taking the medication to experience the side effects.
“Amphetamines classically reduce hunger,” said professor Dee
Shepherd-Look, who has been teaching psychology since 1970 and works
at the parent-child interaction program at CSUN in Monterey Hall.
“People notice that many drugs have desirable side effects and start
using them for reasons that are not intended. This is called off-label
use.”
At the children’s clinic where Shepherd-Look does her practice, the
number two drug prescribed is Adderall, one position shy from Ritalin.
Adderall is FDA-approved for children with attention-deficit
disorders. It has not, however, been clinically tested for the use of
weight loss. Still, some physicians across the nation do prescribe the
drug to, in part, assist with weight loss.
“In my personal view point, there is overuse of Adderall,”
Shepherd-Look said. “It is over-prescribed and overused. Sometimes you
use the drug to treat something that should be treated with
psychological methods and not simply medication.”
According to CSUN dietician Ellen Bauersfeld, at least 50 percent of
students come in to lose weight. Hundreds of students visit the Klotz
Student Health Center hoping to be prescribed drugs that can help shed
pounds.
“There are many that have done crash diets, nutritionally inadequate
and not feeling well,” Bauersfeld said. “There is so much nutrition
misinformation out there. … Students who try pills are driven for a
quick fix.”
She said that chronic dieters and patients who have a tendency to have
an eating disorder may resort to taking diet pills.
Shepherd-Look expressed concerns about a society that overuses drugs
for a quick fix.
“Whether hyperactive or overweight, people need to find out how to
cope with the issues without just popping a pill,” she said.
Amphetamines may initially help with weight loss, but data suggests
that when they are not taken anymore, the weight can come back, and
generally at a faster rate prior to the drug use.
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