Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Tips to Protect yourself When Buying From an Online Drug Store

You will want to protect yourself when ordering from an online drug store. The reason? There have been plenty of reports in the past several years of pharmacies not giving consumers the correct medications, giving placebos or outdated medication and even giving them dosages that far exceed what their prescriptions are written for. When traced back, many of these pharmacies online were not legitimate or where overseas where no proper tracking and accountability exists.

Here in the United States there are governing entities such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) which create and regulate the quality of service as well as standards the online drug store must adhere to. To protect yourself from receiving medications that are harmful to you from pharmacies online, you should follow these two ideas:

1. Thoroughly investigate the online drug store to check and ensure they require a valid (and legal) prescription from a licensed doctor or practitioner that has the authority to do so. A real prescription is your proof that you do require the medication for a specific illness or health condition. If an online entity only requires you to provide a method of payment and answer a few questions, the red flags should be flying in your head.

2. Check to see whether or not the online drug store you plan to use is certified to dispense and deliver medications in your home state. This can be accomplished by visiting the website for the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP). They implement standards for pharmacies – both brick and mortar and now online – to ensure they are adhering to proper standards. They even sponsor a voluntary program for certification called VIPPS or Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites. Every Online Pharmacy that goes through this certification is physically met by a team from VIPPS to ensure all protocol of standards and safety are followed.

There are other things you can do besides checking with NABP as to the legitimacy and safety of an online drug store. As mentioned before, do not purchase medications from a website that does not require proof of a prescription. That should be a major red flag. Another flag raiser is the inability to see where the company is registered, as in, are they a company in the United States. Remember, as an American, you are protected by the governing FDA as they have stringent policies in place regarding prescription medications whereas foreign pharmacies do not. You may not know exactly what you receive when purchasing drugs from a foreign online drug store.

When seeking a legitimate pharmacy online, you want to ensure they have proper customer service support in the form of access to a pharmacist with proper credentials. You want advice from someone knowledgeable in the medications and pharmacists are the best ones to handle those queries. If there is any question of side effects of a medication or even the proper way to administer it, you will want to know the advice you receive is sound. Before placing your prescription order with an online drug store, test the customer service department and access to the pharmacist.

The services of an online drug store can be well worth it but it is important to protect your health an interests before convenience and price sake. Take the time to ensure the online entity you are debating on is worth it by investigating them through one of the governing pharmacy bodies mentioned earlier. Visit the websites of these governing entities and give them a call if you cannot find out the information you need.

Information holds power so if you are yourself with it, you will be fine. Therefore, if you think you have found the online drug store for you, go ahead and place your first order. However, do not take your first dosage of medication right away. Look to the internet and find the drug manufacturer's website so you can check what your medication should look like. Compare the two to ensure they match. Most drugs have the milligram dosage as well as drug name inscribed on it and therefore it is easy to tell. If you have the slightest hesitation, visit your neighborhood pharmacist and ask them. Your life is more important than the convenience and price of an online drug store.

An online pharmacy boasting over eight years of selling FDA-Approved online prescriptions, at the lowest prices available on the internet. Buy Viagra Online at garner an array of benefits associated with buying prescription medicines from the Internet's leading online pharmacy.

What to Expect With Prostate Cancer Treatment

More than half a million Americans will die of cancer this year, and in men, prostate cancer is second only to lung cancer as a cause of death. Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin cancer in America, affecting about 16 percent of men. According to the Prostate Cancer Foundation,more than 186,000 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2008, and more than 28,000 men will die from the disease. A new case occurs every two-and-a-half minutes, and a man dies from prostate cancer every 19 minutes.

When it's caught early, prostate cancer can be halted in the majority of men. But this disease, not to mention its treatment, can have a profound effect on a man's ability to perform sexually.

Duration of erectile dysfunction following surgery

If a man requires prostate surgery, or radical prostatectomy, for prostate cancer, his life, especially his sex life, may be changed forever. It is important to remember that surgery of any kind is a traumatic procedure and it takes time for the body to recover. In the event of this type of surgery, the ability to achieve an erection will also take time, but many men will see an improvement in their erections over time, especially men who had no difficulty achieving a good erection before the surgery.

In the first three months to a year after a radical prostatectomy, most men will not be able to accomplish a spontaneous erection, and will probably require an erectile dysfunction medication that can be bought through an Online Pharmacy, such as Viagra, to attain an erection.

Radiation therapy

Unlike radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer, radiation therapy may cause problems slowly and over time. The main cause of erectile dysfunction following radiation is damage to the blood vessels supplying the nerves responsible for erections.

Cryosurgery

Cryosurgery, or the technique of using extreme cold to treat tumors in cancer, can have permanent negative effects. When the prostate gland is frozen the nerve bundles controlling erections can often be permanently damaged.

Treating erectile dysfunction after prostate cancer treatment

Viagra is an oral erectile dysfunction medication that works by promoting increased blood flow to produce an erection when the penis is manually stimulated, and can be obtained through a reputable online pharmacy. Viagra does not improve sex drive, only erections. Studies have shown that men with erectile dysfunction after prostatectomy respond well to Buy Viagra if the nerve bundles on both sides of the prostate are intact. But Viagra is normally not effective if one or both nerve bundles have been damaged.

Other possible solutions to helping a man regain his facility to produce an erection after prostate treatment include penile medication injections, use of a vacuum constriction or vacuum erection device (which is very costly), or a penile implant, a prosthetic device surgically implanted inside the penis.

The bottom line is that a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test for prostate cancer is recommended annually for men over 50, or even earlier for men with a family history of prostate cancer. Without our health we've got nothing, and nothing makes a man feel like less of a man than the inability to perform. So you need to take care of yourself, and know all the medical options that exist for you in today's modern world.