Some doctors are questioning the recent approval of Lyrica to treat fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition that they say isn’t a real illness (other doctors disagree). Because Pfizer and other companies are poised to market the drug aggressively, millions of consumers might end up taking the drug who don’t need it, they fear.
Meanwhile, Congress is investigating the role of artificial heart pioneer Robert Jarvik in marketing Lipitor, the world’s best-selling drug. Jarvik, it turns out, may not be certified to practice medicine or qualified to offer medical advice.
And a recent study found that the pharmaceutical industry puts almost twice as much money into drug marketing and promotion as into research and development, contrary to the industry’s longtime claims that it is primarily research-driven.
Direct-to-consumer drug marketing deserves much more scrutiny.
59 Comments
Oh boy. I have fibromyalgia. the condition is certainly REAL. As with so many others who also have FM, we had pain long before there was a name put upon it. Suffered silently as we finally got to the point of saying this is truly affecting my life and I can’t take it anymore.
So these doctors want what? That you ignore the patients complaints of something being wrong?
Let me tell you how bad FM hurts. I was certain that I had bone cancer. Certain of it. I was so writhed with pain that I was fairly close to doing either something illegal or deadly to get out of pain.
So this article really p’s me off. We’ve worked so hard to get FM legitimitized in the community- and it has been working. Now an article like this comes out and it could be years to undo the damage.
By the way, Lyrica, I believe, is pretty similar to Neurontin which I have been taking for a long time. Although neurontin HELPS, it certainly does not work as well as say, a painkiller.
Neurontin comes in generic and has been on the market already many years.
Just like 95% of doctors and 100% of drug reps; treat the symptoms and ignore the root cause. “Take OUR drugs for your pain relief”.
“You have Restless Leg Syndrome”
“Here take two of these, twice daily, for the rest of your life”.
Give me a break and come back home to reality.
PM,
You can mail me back channel, but have you ever tried Cymbalta or any of the newer antidepressants. One hears a lot about fibromyalgia and I have wondered if it was a subset of a depression. Do you have any links that would describe the mechanisms of this disorder? The people I run into, either believe it is a real thing, or they don’t – not much in between.
I have used other antidepressants for the pain. That’s the key word there, for the pain. Antidepressants prescribed for this help the brain manage the pain better, it’s used as an adjunct. They’re not treating depression, but I can promise you that depression comes with chronic pain and decreased ability to do what you want to do. Not the other way around.
This whole ‘depression hurts’ campaign may have some truth to it. But for the most part, they’re not the same thing. I wasn’t depressed in the beginning. I’ve had pain for a long time so it is hard to remember when I wasn’t…but I can remember being depressed as a teenager, and not in pain. It is good history that will help a doctor decide which came first, the chicken or the egg.
There are many many places that have fm help on the web. Just type it into the search for whichever type of link you’re looking for.
There is a person who wrote a ton of stuff on FM Devin Starlynal.
It’s also questionable that I might have what’s called myofascial pain. I can’t tell what the differences are in what I have read.
I can tell you that they can change the name, decide it is false or whatever…and nothing about how I feel will change. There is a real problem inside me that is hell everyday. Call it what you will, but I’d sure love it if they’d figure out exactly what it is and find a real cure. If they call it lice and mites I don’t care as long as they figure it out and find a real cure.
I’ve been saying for years that one big way to bring down the cost of healthcare is to ban the drug companies from advertising drugs. Not only would it greatly decrease the cost of medicine, it would also cut down on the number of people out there that take a drug simply because they saw it on TV. When the government pays for a person’s meds (ie. Medicaid) they often want to be on evrything under the sun. One patient I had with 3 different doctors cost the government about $50,000 a year just for her prescription meds.
In Japan and some other countries, it’s illegal for drug companies to advertise or bribe doctors with free samples and perks.
Another way to bring down the cost is to charge everyone, no matter how poor they are, co-pays. You’d be amazed how some on Medicaid wouldn’t take meds if they even have a dollar co-pay. They have money for cigarettes of course, but won’t pay a nickel for a medication the doctor wants them to take if it has to come out of their pocket.
I’ve seen a patient call and ambulance to go to the ER for a minor problem because they didn’t want to spend $7 to take a cab to the doctor. If you made them pay a $25 co-pay to take an ambulance ride and another $20 for an ER visit, that would stop real fast.
Often people won’t spend money when it’s THEIR money they have to spend. As long as it’s a free ride, why not?
Yup, Mary.
Pharm companies are not research driven, they are profit driven. A study looking at the effects of study sponorship found that if the drug study was funded by a Pharm company the effect-size benefits were considerably greater than if the drug was evaluated by a study not so funded. That was a very surprising finding – not.
Remember how the drug companies were touting the benefits of hormone replacement therapy? They advertised the benefits to the heart, bones, etc. and even stated the HRT didn’t increase the chances of breast cancer as previously thought. When all sorts of women came down with breast cancer (including me and 10 other women I knew who took hormones) they changed their tune real fast. Now that women aren’t taking hormones like before, the incidence of breat cancer has gone way down. All that research saying HRT was harmless was sponsered by drug comapnies…who I’m sure made billions from the sale of drugs like Prem Pro for menopausal women.
I have m.s. and fibromyalgia, and restless leg syndrome. These diseases are very real. I just started taking lyrica; this is the first drug that has really helped me! I have been on neurontin for years, I am now ready to get off that, since lyrica helps. Doctors do use it for depression, but also for REAL pain. Those of you that do not believe this is a real disease, must not have it! Or you would know that it is! People who have chronic diseases usually have depression; it goes hand in hand. so this drug kills two birds with one stone so to speak.
Very real. I’m not slighting your problems, Shirley, but I’m gonna become a drug manufacturer. Like P.T. Barnum says…
Shirley, I’ve been hoping someone taking Lyrica would post. I asked my doctor and he seemed to think that it was also pretty close to Neurontin. Do you think the combo of Neurontin and Lyrica is helping you- or the neurontin alone? Also I have trouble with the neurontin because of the sleepiness. Is Lyrica having any of those side effects?
This could be also helpful for my father who has seriously bad diabetic neuropathy.
As far as the research, yes it is profit driven and we need to get back to where the FDA is actually an oversight regulatory committee rather than an extension of the drug companies. We also need to stop making it so that researchers are tied to the drug companies. It’s really sad that we can’t cure anything anymore, since they want people to continue to be sick in order to get money out of them.
I’m quite certain that smallpox would have never been cured if they found a way to minimize the symptoms as long as you had to take a pill every day. Earning money from the sick has got to stop.
Mary, while some may take advantage, most people aren’t like that. When my grandma fell and couldn’t even get up to go to the bathroom and I was practically living over there, my grandfather had a fit about taking her to the ambulance because he didn’t want to have to pay…and she NEEDED to go.
They’re on medicare and they do have to pay. It doesn’t cover all expenses.
well,pm…I just now am stopping the neurontin because of the side affects also. The lyrica seems to be helping me soooo much more!! problem is…insurance doesnt want to hardly pay for it at all! and Mary, probably the reason why dad was not wanting the ambulance, is because insurance or medicaid doesnt want to pay a penny unfortunatley! I cant understand why our country makes it so hard on people, especially our elderly with medicines. Most of our elderly are on life saving medicines! What happens when they can not afford it anymore? they go without! and that is very sad!!! I just cant understand that!
oops; sorry I said mary when I meant pm! lol brain turd moment!!! p.s. we all have those!!!!
People can’t sleep at night, so there’s Ambien. Now, the body is built to walk 10 miles a day, if you don’t do that (or even somewhere near that), your body won’t be tired like it’s supposed to be at night. People get “Irritable Bowel Syndrome” because they don’t know thyself and eat crappy fast-food.
pleefer; some of us cant exercise. like me with m.s. and all else i have, excercise can do more damage than good. but drug companies makes profits advertising how good it is to take this or that; like sleep aids, etc. i am raising 3 grandbabies…i cant afford to be drowsy! lol. I do try to excercise in what little ways I can though. forgot to mention also, when you have one or more of the diseases like I or pm have, you also have the pleasure of ibs, insomnia, and more!!
I’m begining to think that some of these new syndromes and diseases might be caused by previous perscription people are taking. But I really have no idea, I’m not a pharmacists. I think the drug industry is dirty though, they would rather treat the symptoms than the root cause. A lot of times health problems can be fixed by drastically changing the diet, or taking well proven remedies that have been used for thousands of years. I’ll give a simple example, why take dramamine when you can take ginger and cure the problem instead of treating the symptoms. That is a very simple example though. A lot of the healthy food people quit eating like carrots, and greens are the very foods that fight diseases, and the very food people are eating now days, overly processed food make people more susceptible to disease.
Mary, some say that if healthcare were free, it wouldn’t affect the demand for it. Your writings are convincing evidence that price does affect the demand.
w.e: I understand what you are saying, but I can’t afford to be a health nut; have you seen the prices? I do try to eat healthy though…lots of veges, fruit and more. and yes fast food can do a lot of damage. but no, I do not believe that our diseases are caused by prescription meds.
Also eating too much meat is bad for your health, especially the beef we have now days shot up with antibiodics and humangrowth hormone. I think people need to get back to eating fresh real foods, I quit eating processed food six months ago, and I don’t have any digestive problems anymore. I still eat the occasional burger once or twice a month. But for example, I ate beans, onions, carrots, spinach, apples, oranges, a plum, pb&j sandwich and a salad yesterday. I don’t like the fresh spinach I eat, but I eat some every day anyway, I quit having stomach problems. I used to eat frozen dinners, and fast food everyday, and I had stomach problems all the time, you name it, heartburn, gasey stomach, the runs, constipation. I was amazed that all I had to do was eat healthy foods and wow, my body works normally, what a concept, I feel kind of stupid it took so long for me to figure that out.
Yea, healthy food is expensive, because the governemnt gives tax breaks, hand outs, and subsidies to all the people who raise cows, and corn.
WhiteElephant,
Grandmothers were right about a lot of things, including diet. :)
Shirley, I didn’t mean to come off rude, my wife’s cousin has MS as well and I feel for you girl. But there are the vast majority of genuinely lazy people that I refer to.
And Elephant, you talked about growth hormone in the meat. Sooo true. My daughter is 7 and she’s already developing boobs. That pisses me off.
Sometimes, I almost tend to think that just maybe we have forced ourselves into living in a too anti-septic, sanitized world… And that maybe we have somehow damaged our own immune systems, and diseases once more or leses unknown, have been able to kick in… I think about the amazing increase in ADD, and Asthma, especially in children… And look at all the millions who have stopped smoking, and yet pulmonary diseases are on the increase… Why?? I dont know!! I read a few years ago, that the air quality on airplanes is now worse than it was before they banned smoking on air planes… What are we supposed to think of that?? I dont know! But I am most puzzled!!
Yes they were, shouldn’t have ignored my Grandma’s advice.
Since my mother’s family was once in the Floral business in Wichita, I remember that they used to fumigate the greenhouses, to kill all kinds of damaging little bugs… And what did they use to fumigate??? A “nicotine” spray!! Nicotine — to KILL bugs… Hmmmm Tobacco has nicotine… nicotine kills bugs… We are trying to rid people of nicotine in their lives… and we get more and more people sick… Could there be some connection?? I dont know! But I am most amazed…
I don’t think the Nicotine is that much concern Chas.
What is concerned is cigarette damage to the lungs. As I understand it, what the smoke does is break down the surfactant layer of the lung until it no longer becomes functional. The surfactant layer being the layer of lung tissue that provides lubrication.
What happens next is when the lung becomes dry, the body tries to compensate and starts to build fluids, thus causing emphysema, reduced lung capacity and in some cases where the tissue is weakened allowing cancer to creep in.
It’s always better to ask a Doctor of course.
I’ve heard the lung compared to a wetlands. If the fluid is drained out, it stops supporting life as we know it and starts to rot. Something to think about.
But yet, it is the nicotine that supposedly gets us addicted to smoking… So, I am still amazed.
ok you guys are above my head! lol. pm,i would ask your doc about your dad for lyrica, it may help him. It, like neurontin is used for a wide variety of things.
For your information – at this time (10:05 a.m.) the Diane Rheem (sp?) show on KMUW for the first hour will be discussing this medication and illness.
That is 89.1 on your FM dial – this is public radio.
Um, Regular, I hope you go and read up more about emphysema…and pulmonary edema while you’re at it.
The first medication I ever took regularly was FOR my fibromyalgia. So I guess that blows the theory that medications cause fibromyalgia.
Ask your doctor if Jack Daniel’s is right for you.
Other fake “disorders” treated with expensive drugs include ‘restless leg syndrome’ and ’social anxiety disorder’. Drug companies create syndromes in order to market a drug.
The last thing you want to hear in the emergency room when you’ve got crushing chest pain or can’t breathe is that you have to wait before you can get treatment.
Unfortunately, in too many instances, that’s exactly what’s happening. In fact, new research found that waiting times in emergency rooms have increased by 36 percent for all patients, to an average of 30 minutes per patient. And the sickest sometimes have to wait the longest: As many as one-quarter of all heart attack patients had to wait 50 minutes or longer before seeing a doctor.
The last thing you want to hear in the emergency room when you’ve got crushing chest pain or can’t breathe is that you have to wait before you can get treatment.
Unfortunately, in too many instances, that’s exactly what’s happening. In fact, new research found that waiting times in emergency rooms have increased by 36 percent for all patients, to an average of 30 minutes per patient. And the sickest sometimes have to wait the longest: As many as one-quarter of all heart attack patients had to wait 50 minutes or longer before seeing a doctor.
http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/health/feeds/hscout/2008/01/15/hscout611739.html
Pills, pills
won’t CURE your ills
But if you’ve the chills
or other ills?
Just go to one of the Doctorshills
and get yourself
a bunch of pills.
I’m no doctor, but for those in here who have fibromyalgeia, you might want to cut out processed foods, particularly gluten bread which feeds certain bacteria that can lead to an immune response, eat fruits, vegetables and legumes for the bulk of your diet, and take gotu kola for nerve and capillary treatment, ginger and turmeric for inflammation, and garlic to kill off any bacterial or viral infections. Take those four herbs daily after meals, don’t over do it. Tell your doctor if your going to do this. I’ve studies traditional chinese medicine for 3 years, so I’m not talking crazy stuff here. If you can don’t take opiate painkillers, that will further aggravate the condition.
Note: use fresh garlic, not the powdered, or bottled kind.
Don’t know about fibromyalgeia, but I’ll tell you what, if it weren’t for Lyrica, I’d still be out on disability after my shingles.
If you have MS Excel or Open Office spreadsheets, use it to record the times of your pain and the atmosphere barometric pressure.
There is strong correlation between ABP and pain.
Sun light is also good for pain, UV helps generate vitamin D.
Vitamin D deficiency can cause pain too.
One of the real problems facing the medical community is that about 1500 new drugs are approved every year, and there’s no way for doctors to keep up on all of them, and most of the simpler pipelines for information are controlled by manufacturers. The FDA needs to be de-politicized and become a peer-reviewed scientific clearinghouse for drug information to/from doctors, and should be open to patients as well.
Advertizing prescription drugs to the public needs to be banned, along with percs to doctors who prescribe certain drugs. I don’t mind the samples, coffee cups and pens etc., but the free “seminars” on golf clubs in the caribbean are unethical, as are doctors holding significant stock in drug companies.
Today’s prescriptions should not be dispensed in milligram dosages, but sold by the Carat; some are fast approaching the wholesale price of diamonds! A patent is not a right, it’s a privilege in a true capitalist system, and comes with responsibilities. It’s not a license for screaming “Your money or your life!” Drug companies that use their patents to commit highway robbery need to lose those patents.
White-E,
“Note: use fresh garlic, not the powdered, or bottled kind.”
Wow! I had no idea fibromyalgia was caused by exposure to vampires!
P-Mom,
When a drug like Lyrica is so similar to a generic like Gabapentin, my first suspicion is that it’s a “Me-too” drug designed primarily to make it patentable.
You should look into what Dr.Sarno has written about for many years on this condition. He has healed thousands of people for this and many other related psychosomatic illnesses. And, no, psychosomatic does not mean it’s all in your head. I have been suffering in the dark for years and recently read one of his books and was AMAZED at the effects it had on me. Treating the symptoms with drugs is not the answer. Good luck…
Wow! I had no idea fibromyalgia was caused by exposure to vampires!
No but theres indications that certain forms of symptoms that are diagnosed as fibromyalgeia might actually be advanced stages of Lyme Disease, Lyme Disease is a Chronic bacterial infection of the skin caused by of course deer ticks, everybody knows that. Garlic has strong antibiodic, antibacterial, and antiviral properties with them, not only that garlic is natural and won’t build up bacteria resistant strains from abusing garlic intake like man made antibiodics do. What I recommended was a multi-faceted attack on Fibromyalgeia which the causes of it are actually unknown, it might actually be a broad diagonsed disease that can be caused from a plethora of things. In my opion only its safter to treat unknown ailments naturally not with a bombardment of harsh labrotory made chemicals in pill form.
I also recommended to cut out gluten in your diet, gluten is chocked full of proteins that bacteria like to feed on, if its Lyme Disease then the bacteria will get more than enough food from gluten to thrive in the body for years.
The Ginger and Turmeric are amoung the strongest anti-inflammatory herbs in existence, I recommended those to treat the sensitivity and pain symptoms of fibromyalgeia, I recommend the gotu kola because its a powerful nerve tonic, wound healer from its potent amounts of vitamin K, anti-depressant, and nootropic. A nootropic is a drug which increases cognitive functions. I recommended that because from what I read fibromyalgeia wreaks havoc on the nervous system causing depression and brain fog, usually from the sleep disorders it causes. Not only that, these four herbs are proven safe in most people and have been used thousands of years as food and medicine.
I do not recommend taking strong painkillers, people usually develop a tolerence to those, on top of that if you suffer from chronic pain, the pain killers will increase your thresh hold of pain you can stand, but when the pain killers wear off the pain will feel doubly worse than it naturally does, this in turn makes people take a constant rate of painkillers so they won’t have to suffer the doubly painful effects of withdrawl.
Its like if your outside naked in freezing weather, it hurts like hell, so you jump into a hot tub and the effects of the cold weather go away, but when you get out of the hot tub the cold wind on your naked wet body will feel worse than ever. Kind of what painkillers do.
White-E,
From your posts I assume you’re one of those people who believe that pain is some kind of righteous purifying agent. As someone who has spent most of a lifetime dealing with my own and other people’s pain, I can assure you that I’m certainly no purer that the next guy. Pain is just pain, and I’m for anything that actually lessens it.
I’ve always wondered about health-food nuts- won’t you find it awfully embarassing to discover yourselves in the hospital dying of absolutely nothing?
I don’t think painkillers increase your pain. I do know you build a tolerance to them. That’s normal in pain management. As for gluten, do you have any idea how impossible it is to remove gluten from your diet? I did it for my son for 6 months. And there were many slip ups. All of these foods out there are either processed on the same line as gluten rich lines, so cross contamination happens. Sometimes when you switch from Gluten to corn, you develop a corn allergy.
My diet is the same as it was before I had pain, so I don’t buy into the diet issue. And If you think RLS is fake, I hope you get it. I don’t have it- but I did after I gave birth. It’s annoying as all get out. My doctor told me to take iron and it did cure it. I can’t wait till you get it then you can say ‘oh, gee, maybe I shouldn’t have laughed at those who say they had it”.
Same with FM, but I wouldn’t wish that upon you.
I am so sick of all these herbal remedies. Not one has helped, and I have done Niacin and Vit B12 and B6 and St Johns Wort (which I swear to god made me feel 100x’s worse.). Then it was these berry juices. You’ll have to forgive me if I’m really tired of people with no pain trying to tell me how to cure a disease thy don’t have with herbs.
It’s like trying to help type 1 diabetes with diet. It just aint gonna work.
By the way WE, do you know what Vitamin K does? It aids in blood clotting. That advice may put someone into a stroke or heart attack. Not to mention it is also carcinogenic.
Political Mama,
You’re taking the wrong herbs.
Hypochondriac nation.
Pleefie,
Of course she’s using the wrong herbs! The dinosaurs ate all the right ones, hence both the herbs and the dinosaurs have been extinct for 65,000,000 years.
I am here to tell y’all fibromyalgia is real; with real pain! I am so sick of people calling us hypochondriacs!!! I have m.s. fibro, rls, ibs. are you going to tell me none of this is real?? are you going to heal me with expensive diets? NO you wont. been there, done that. I dont diagnose myself, the doctors do that for me. most docs tell me that with the m.s. the fibro, rls, ect go hand in hand with it. also depression. I lost the use of my legs for 6 months and was in a wheelchair! the fibro and rls was still there, so even though the m.s. had me w/c bound, I still had the pain! so YES the pain is real. for some people maybe diet might work for them. for me it didnt. I get so tired of people thinking the pain isnt real, and the disease isnt real. I am not a hypochondriac what so ever! I cant stand people that are; compared to those with the real problems. if you dont believe its real, or that the pain is real, I would gladly let you walk in my shoes for a week!
I would say multiple sclerosis is your larger problem Shirley and most likely the source of your leg pain.
I know what it’s like to live in pain, I live it everyday.
I totally agree with you; it all stems from the m.s. I am sorry you have to live in pain. I feel for anyone living in chronic pain! ty
I didn’t say the pain wasn’t real, and I also didn’t mention anything about st johns wort, or niacin or anything else you mentioned. Painkillers do make the pain worse if you stop taking them, yes they kill the pain, but if you ever to decide to stop taking them, the pain you do have will be worse, from withdrawal effects. I’m a firm believer in diet playing a key role in preventing and combating disease, I’ll take the whack job health nut slander you want to call me because of my views, I don’t care. Eating healthy isn’t that expensive either, fast food cost more than buying apples and spinach, that will last you a week or two. Some frozen t.v. dinners are 4 or 5 bux, you can buy a big bag or oranges for that much money that will last to 2-3 weeks. I think western medicine is wonderful, I stabbed my ear drum out accidently when I was 7 with a q-tip, and the doctors gave me a new eardrum from skin they took off the side of my head. So modern medicine in my pathetic opinion is great, except for some of the drug companies.
I wasnt meaning to call you names. I was talking in general to all the comments thus far. so plz accept my apologies if you thought that. but I really do get tired of people in general thinking that fibro and restless leg syndrome is not real. I have so many different problems now besides the m.s. that I dont know which way to turn. I do not like meds that much, thats why I shy away from them as much as possible. if my doc gives me one, I usually take one away. because i do agree that too many meds or too strong of meds is bad for you. thats why i also agreed to some type of diet. i do eat lots of veggies and fruits, etc. but sometimes when nothing else works, i will take some meds is all. i just started the lyrica, and so far it seems to do what none of the others have, so i was able to stop completely 3 meds, which i am very happy about.
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