MEDS! Finally, my husband read his doctor the riot act.

[Aristus]

47. I am. The statin I prescribe the most is lovastatin.

When it went generic a couple of years ago, I was ecstatic. Dirt cheap ($4 for a month's supply at many of the big, national pharmacies), and my patients had fewer adverse reactions to it than to simvastatin or pravastatin. I put my patients on a recommended dosage and keep them there until their numbers clear (especially triglycerides), then either put them on a low maintenance dose, or propose a drug holiday and proceed with diet and exercise alone. It all depends on each individual patient.

Generics are a Godsend when providing care to the underserved and underinsured. And I'm always on the lookout for the latest money-making scheme. When Prilosec went generic a while back (a medication called omeprazole), the manufacturer stood to lose out on a valuable brand. So they took omeprazole back into the lab with them, tweaked the molecule here and there, and came up with esomeprazole; essentially the same medication, branded it as Nexium, and went back on the brand-name gravy-train with a huge ad campaign that I still remember.

I've never prescribed Nexium. And I never will.