I am going to be a guinea pig.

[jmarie]

My insurance company will not cover my prescription the Doctor gave me for CELEBREX.

Has anyone tried ordering prescriptions from Canada? Can you tell me about your experience? I haven't the foggiest idea of where to start. He told me the best thing to do was find out how much a 90 day supply is, up there and then go from there.

If we find that it is cost-prohibitive, we will forget it, but if it is cost efficient, he is going to suggest ordering this way to all of his patients.

Anyone ouut there who has had success? I did two search engines and didn't come up with anything, so forgive if this is repetetive...if you could send me the link, that would be great.

I am going to cross-post this in 'Other Stuff'.
Thanks for any help!
Joyce

[Vanessa]

Hi!
Please do check about Celebrex. My mom has osteoarthritis and was put on ceebrex it really messed up her stomach. She had internal bleeding.Fortunately she stopped it and it took a while for her to feel ok again. Yes Vioxx and celebrex are used for osteoarthritis but please discuss with your dr the side effects etc.

[slawrence]

Joyce, your doctor might be able to get your insurance company to cover it if he can prove you have stomach problems OR you have 'failed' several other anti-inflammatory meds that are approved by your ins company. We go to bat all the time for patients when insurance gives them a hard time. It is time-consuming and a bit of a pain, but our patients are worth it.
Vanessa, I am surprised your mom had some stomach problems with it since it is used for people that cannot tolerate the other meds that are hard on the stomach. Glad she got better. Some people just cannot take certain things while others can just about ingest battery acid and be fine. Sue

[DocAgocs]

This is a bit off-topic, but you could try a good White Willow Bark extract. Several studies have shown it to be as effective, if not more, as Vioxx after two weeks of use. And that you can pick up without a problem in the USA. If you want the details please PM me because the technicalities of what to look for in an acceptable product are not appropriate for this thread (and no, I'm not selling anything). And, if you're taking it for chronic spinal pain, a recent study in Spine, a medical journal, reported that chiropractic was 5 times more likely to resolve it than Vioxx or Celebrex. So, just some food for thought. Good luck!

[badunnin]

Originally posted by DocAgocs
This is a bit off-topic, but you could try a good White Willow Bark extract. Several studies have shown it to be as effective, if not more, as Vioxx after two weeks of use. And that you can pick up without a problem in the USA. If you want the details please PM me because the technicalities of what to look for in an acceptable product are not appropriate for this thread (and no, I'm not selling anything). And, if you're taking it for chronic spinal pain, a recent study in Spine, a medical journal, reported that chiropractic was 5 times more likely to resolve it than Vioxx or Celebrex. So, just some food for thought. Good luck!

Doc, is there anything that herbs/supplements and chiropractic care can't fix, in your opinion? I'm being serious, not facetious.

[jmarie]

I'm not going to knock it because my mother-in-law is a strong promoter of herbs and tonics and suppliments. She is 78 years old and has the face of an 18 year old. I am not kidding. She gets around and has more energy than most 55 year olds. Hers are mostly anti-aging and stuff like that. She told me to use glucosimine but I wouldn't until I talked to my Dr. and he agreed that it couldn't hurt.

Since my problem isn't in my spine(it is my knees) then chiropractic
won't help. The reason I wanted Celebrex was because I had 4 days worth of samples and took them for the 4 days and my pain was gone. As soon as I stopped taking it, pain returned. I was looking for the 'quick fix' as I do a lot of stair climbng and it hurts!

As, I said before, I'm a believer.....to coin a phrase from an old Monkey's Song.
J!

[DocAgocs]

Badunnin, good question and I hope no fights result from this, but the short answer is no. BUT, let me qualify that before the you-know-what hits the fan! First of all, the two things have nothing to do with each other, so let's separate herbs from chiropractic right away. So, let's tackle herbs first... in the USA herbs get a fru-fru, hippie, can't hurt 'ya can't help ya label, but we're fairly unique in that regard. Mainly the reason is that the quality of herbs available to the general population is usually junk. Typical stuff in the health food store/grocery is poor quality to begin with, the wrong plant part, the wrong plant altogether, the wrong species, poorly processed, contains contaminants and/or may be at non-therapeutic levels. So, they have gotten a bad rap in the USA for a pretty good reason, and I tell my patients if they aren't going to take my suggestions for sources of herbs not to bother at all because it's usually a waste of money. If they can find a better source than I have I'm all ears but it hasn't happened yet! I wish it would, though. Herbs are just plants and plants are extremely complicated for green flowerly things that just sit there. The result is that preoperly applied herbs have complex actions in the body and can do a lot. Also, they seem to work synergistically in many cases, which means that a few herbs that do different things may work better than any one alone. This is the main difference between medicine and herbalism. With western drug-based medicine, the chemicals being used are one single compound in most cases, with some dyes, fillers, etc added. This means they have a very narrow physiological action in the body.

The upside to this is that they are fairly predictable for good or bad and they are fairly controllable. The bad side is that they often miss the "big picture" problem and sometimes even make the problem worse while effectivley covering up the symptoms of the problem. I prefer to think of patients' problems not as a single entity, but rather as a house made of bricks, with each brick contributing to the problem. The more bricks you can control the better the patient will be with FIXING their problem, not just covering it up or delaying a problem. That said there are many drugs that can't be replaced by herbs and people shouldn't try. You have to be smart about how these things are used. In ther herb world there are many types of analgesics (pain killers) depending on the type and origin of pain and they can be coupled with other herbs to help the complete problem. For example, if someone has pain that is keeping them awake all night and then they wake up stiff, sore and tired and raw the next day and go through it all again night after night, the herbal strategy would be to use something for the pain as well as something like Valerian for sleep (non-narcotic, doesn't make you pass out, no hangover the next day, no fuzzy head, etc). By attacking more than one aspect of the problem there is a potential for as good if not better success than a narrow window with drugs. But then again, maybe not. The role of a good doctor is to try to determine the best means for the patient and if something isn't working to try something different!

Interestingly in this specific case, it is not well-understood how White Willow bark controls pain in humans, although Bayer used Willow BArk as the precursor for Aspirin. The compounds are different and using White Willow bark doesn't put enough salicylates into the bloodstream to have an "aspirin-like" effect, so how it works is still a mystery. A postmarketing survey of a white willow bark extract standardized to 240mg of salicin per day for 4 weeks showed 40% of patients being pain free (study was on low back pain) at the end of the treatment period, regardless of whether they were doing other therapies at the time simultaneously. A more controlled study compared Vioxx (12.5mg/day rofecoxib) to the same 240mg/day salicin standardized white willow bark extract and after 4 weeks (sorry, I said two) there was no difference in the patients' report of pain level, need for additional analgesics, or side effects. Each group was 114 patients. So how it works? Not sure yet, but it does. For that matter, I've been told by more than one MD that the dirty secret is that over the counter NSAID's like Advil work as good, if not better, than Vioxx or Celebrex and I think this was exposed in the media a bunch of times, too. So, if you don't want to go the herbal route and your stomach can handle NSAID's then why spend extra?

Now, on to chiropractic. Additional studies on what and why chiropractic can help people with expand on an almost daily basis. Can it "cure" patients of things? No. I think all that chiropractic does is remove interference in the way peoples' bodies are supposed to work. The body is innately supposed to be healthy, but if something is blocking that health, in the case of chiropractic we're talking about the complex interaction of the nervous system and the musculoskeletal frame, then it will be healthy. The same way that you can't get down your street if a roadbloack is put up, but once the roadblock is removed you can get anywhere, chiropractic sort of works. Anecdotal evidence of chiropractic is ridiculous in its volume. Name a condition and you will find a case study or patient story that they've had something "fixed" using chiropractic care. One of my instructors in pediatrics was a nurse who was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer when she was younger. Her doctors said "sorry, but pack your bags." A friend told her to see her chiropractor "because you never know" and now she's an old woman with a pancreas that works just fine. Does that mean I would recommend every pancreatic cancer patient get under chiropractic care? Absolutely, but I would also be completely honest that there really isn't any data to suggest that it's a longshot!

So, sorry about making this long-winded, but I never tell a patient not to do something. If nothing else, they may heal themselves with the "placebo effect" if they belive strongly enough that it will do the trick! Good for them, I say. I'm extremly realistic with patients and to be honest most of my patients see me for pretty time-proven things: headaches, low back pain, asthma, allergies, other pain of sorts, dizziness, migraines, earaches, colds, etc. BUt every now and then those "miracles" happen and it's not really because of the chiropractic care, it's because the care unlocked the potential within that one person that they needed to be healthy. Ask any MD about spontaneous remission and that sort of thing and they'll have more stories than chiropractors do, so we're just at the tip of the iceberg in understanding health and life and what it means, in my opinion.

Now, if you have access to Spine in your library it will probably be in the last issue, but the study compared chronic spinal pain in acupuncture, drug and chiropractic patients and the results were pretty darn strong in favor of chiropractic. I have patients with lifelong knee and ankle problems that are skipping down the halls after an adjustment and others who can honestly say nothin' happened, so there you have it.

If you want to use White Willow bark you need a good product that is well-made. I like MediHerb's products because their attention to detail is unsurpassed in the herb field and all of their products are basd on clinical research studies, so they actually have therapeutic effects. But, what you need to look for is a product that is made from White Willow stem bark (Salix species) and it should be standardized for a chemical called salicin. You need 240mg/day of salicin for a few weeks for the full effect to come on. MEdiHerb's product would be 4 tablets per day, for example, for a therapeutic effect. There is a possibility that WWB can irritate your stomach or GI tract, although less likely than with Aspirin or NSAID's. Also it may thin the blood slightly and interact with other medications, so be smart about your research or talk to your own doctor before you try it. Or ask them about other drug alternatives, like Advil or other OTCs and using them instead of the prescriptions. According to studies they should work just as well!

[Valerie226]

Celebrex & Vioxx are 2 meds in a group called "non-steroidal antiinflammatories". NSAIDS for short. these 2 are a little different from the older drugs in the group. supposedly easier on the stomach, but plenty of people still have trouble with them. will your insurance company tell which older NSAIDS they will pay for, and have you tried them?
For myself, I've found that Voltaren works great & as do advil and aleve. Just because a drug is new does not mean it works well for everyone or even that it's a " better" drug. It's common to try people on a couple of different NSAIDS to find the one that works best for them.
What happens is drug companies only 'sample" their newest ( and most profitable) drugs so chances are your doc only has celebreex & vioxx to offer you as a trial. When new improved version of celebex/vioxx comes out, then THAT will be the drug sampled.

[Valerie226]

just from news this am, you could try CanaRx.com (I have no experience with them personally)

[swquilts]

I had forgot to add on my previous post.....

My DH has had 2 hip replacements (a young man with an old man's joints). He has also tried a number of alternative meds for his problems. In the last few months he has been taking glucosamine/chondroitin AND MSM for joint help and the man swears by the stuff!! If he misses a day (especially the MSM) he can begin to feel twinges.

Anyway, just another vote for the "other" stuff.

[jmarie]

I already take these. But there is suddenly an inflamation that we are dealing with. This is why the Celebrex. But thanks!
Still working on it...will let you all know what I find out!
Joyce

[doggerham]

Earlier this year I was taking Vioxx for chronic bunion/foot joint pain, and it really, really helped. It helped so much that I felt comfortable working out harder and ruptured a ligiment in my ankle. I'm now about 11 weeks post-surgery to repair the bilateral bunions as well as the ankle issues, which included a bunch of dead bone cleanup. I'm still in PT.

My point? Be careful with this stuff because it can mask symptoms that are there for a reason.

I have taken Vioxx a few times since the surgery when use of advil started to show blood in my stool. However, I am not going to take it regularly, because it makes it difficult for me to evaluate how the healing process is actually going, as well as allowing me to overdo it.

Just my .02