I hope my meds were fake

[CCS]

i feel stupid.

i feel stupid.

i was looking at spironolactone, noticing that it is steroidal, and realized it is not aromatic. neither is finasteride. only dutasteride has one aromatic part. so I can't measure finasteride with UV. and if any sugar is dissolved (it has many inactive ingredients) in the ethanol, that will throw off the visible light spectrum as well. what if generics have different inactive ingredients? not much I can do about that.

so i need the infared spectrum, and I think that C=C double bond and the C3-H bonds are the only things that will distinguish it from sugar. I hope these small peaks are far away from the C2-H and C-O and O-H bond peaks, and others, which will have huge magnitudes by comparison. I can look that up in my textbook.

As for the dutasteride, it has that aromatic benzene ring, which any benzene durivative can fake, but the CF3 bonds should also help. I hope any manufacturer making fakes just made sugar pills and not something to attempt to fool labs. I will have to use toluene or something closer as a standard for the UV to get an idea of the magnitude but not the exact frequency I should be looking for.

If someone can tell me the actual UV peak it should have, that would help a lot. Same with the other peaks.

 

[hairwegoagain]

Got a solution to that, hairwegoagain?

My solution would be to not take dutasteride w/o medical supervision in the first place. We're not dealing with Pez here - I think you can appreciate that.

While I won't stop expressing that it's not a good idea to take prescription drugs without being prescribed, I recognize that some will do what they want to do - ignoring possible consequences in hopes of saving/growing a few more strands.

With that in mind, if you truly can't get a prescription for Avodart from a physician who will monitor you periodically, I'd rather see you get an "online consultation" with prescription sent to a local pharmacy. At least you can then be assured you're getting the actual article vs. some 3rd world garbage. Indeed, you will also be obtaining the medication legally.

I shake my head when I read about guys taking meds without prescription...and this is intensified when they're buying it from an anonymous source from goodness knows where. If you had a baby daughter who needed medicine, would you refuse to take her to the pediatrician, opting to self-prescribe for her crap from a fly-by-night foreign website ? Of course not. It concerns me because I don't want you or any other guys here to crater for something flippantly done while young. Maybe (hopefully) that won't happen....but no one on this board is qualified to make that determination. No one. In some people, hairloss definitely impairs judgement. As someone who has lived with it for years, it's my duty to inform everyone that you don't have to take risks of unknown magnitude - you can have a life equal to anyone else AND treat yourself safely.

 

[techprof]

going back to the orignal poster and the post,
the thinning you observe can be due to the shedding caused by minoxidil. this means that you are a good responder and will get thicker hairs coming in.
It is also possible that your finasteride was fake. But my bet is on minoxidil shedding.

 

[CCS]

i'm starting to agree with you, hairwegoagain, about the possibility of fakes. it is a huge risk to take, when there are no tests.

This whole time people have been saying that dutasteride gave them a shed or something like that, i told them that is not possible. But they could have had fakes.

i'll need to see a doctor who sees old people, since that Doctor would be more familiar with avodart.

i'm still trying to figure out how to test drugs. i think i know how to separate finasteride from all its inactive ingredients, and do the same, but i don't have a standard for dutasteride. i'm not quiting my proscar until i know I can get real stuff.

 

[bubka]

minoxidil was the first thing i tried, was on it for 10 days, woke up once with an actual halo of hair on my pillow, it was freaking scary... it just irritated my scalp (5% rogaine brand) so bad, constant itching and inflammation, maybe it was just the brand, though i have very sensitive skin

 

[CCS]

techprofessor,

have I been making a mistake by advising people to buy dutasteride or finasteride online?

what do you think the odds are that drproctor's products and information about hair loss are right? bryan know a lot about many topics, but I don't believe i've seen any of the studies about drproctors products. i'm having my doubts about a lot of stuff now.

 

[hairwegoagain]

i'm starting to agree with you, hairwegoagain, about the possibility of fakes. it is a huge risk to take, when there are no tests.

It's not just harmless fakes, college. If I knew all of the drugs guys are buying online were in fact innocuous pills of sugar or cornstarch, I wouldn't be in the least concerned...because little harm can result in such (besides wasted money, which is a negligible consideration in comparison). However, there's really no guarantee of what you're getting.

In some cases it could well be the desired compound. Even in those cases, however, there's no way to know under what conditions it was manufactured, how it was stored throughout the shady supply chain, how many times it changed hands, dose consistencies, etc....I could go on for much longer. There's a whole lot of "unknown" that must be considered if you're to assess things in a prudent fashion. There's a difference in being honest with yourself about the source vs. wanting it to be real so badly that you ignore your gut instincts and other warning signs.

Not all prospectives are candidates for a given medication for reasons that may not be obvious to the patient. We're not qualified to make that assessment. Doing so blindly can be unsafe. That's why prescription meds aren't sold next to the Snickers in vending machines .

The simple solution? Get a prescription and purchase the real thing at your local pharmacy. No second guessing, no doubts, no apprehension, no worries about customs seizures nor transaction illegalities. Sure, it may cost a little more...but it's a helluva lot cheaper than spending money on a potentially ineffective and/or harmful product.

I don't care what elitenetpharmacy or others promise. For craps sake, their product photos are taken on a residence floor. If I asked you to relinquish your bank account to me with the promise of doubling your money within a week, without telling you where I'll put your money or how you'll get paid, without giving you my full name, business address, phone number, or ANYTHING about my identity, would you give me your bank account and routing numbers? Of course not. Why would you take a similar risk in acquiring chemical substances that you will put in your body?

 

[techprof]

collegechemistry,
I have bought and used generic finasteride from India before.
When I visited India I got a Doctor's prescription and bought finasteride from genuine pharmacies in India.
They look, taste and feel the same.

Regarding Dr. Proctor, there are no clinical studies. IMHO, he is the only hairloss scientist who had the vision to look for alternatives other than minoxidil and finasteride.

Look at Dr. Lee's website. He has zillions of products which are minoxidil based. How do we know which one works better? What is the effect of various vehicels. No one knows.

Remox, and other docs on the internet are also based on minoxidil and variations of minoxidil with other ingredients.

Dr. Proctor at least has other options for fight against hairloss. At the very least , he has patents to back his products. He knows his sh*t.

Ask Dr. Lee about SODS, he will close his eyes and say no (irrespective of various studies for sods, patents and clincial studies by tricomin with pictures). He claims that there is not enought proof or studies.

Now what about azelaic acid then? Where are the studies? Why is he using it then?

I don't mean this post as a dig at Dr. Lee. It is quite possible his products might be more effective than Dr. Proctor's. If it is so, it is because of minoxidil.

OTOH, Dr. Proctor addresses hairloss from different angles. IMO, we should use both minoxidil and prox or sods in addition to finasteride or dutasteride.

Even after I grow my hairs from my hair transplant and after being satisfied with results, I plan to use prox-N for life in addition to dutasteride, minoxidil and nizoral. This to stop me from getting future loss and to support Dr. Proctor, the researcher.

 

[EasyEd]

Ok, now everyone's making me a little nervous...

I used inhousepharmacy.com, are they known for selling fakes at all? The finpecia I'm buying from them seems to be working so far. Does anyone have any negative stories about them?

 

[CCS]

"They look, taste and feel the same."
That does not make me feel better.

If you were over in india, why didn't you go find Dr Reddy or ask pharmacies there about this company, and make sure you know the URL to a legit pharmacy? Did you ask the pharmacists there anything about buying online from the US?


http://www.inhousepharmacy.com and http://www.unitedpharmacies.com are supposed to be trusted indian sites that buy from cipla, though they carry multiple brands for whatever reason.

The cost of going bald is much higher than the added cost of buying in the US, especially when i only plan to take Avodart twice a week. I just wish the professor had done his homework so we could save some money.

techprofessor, do you even know the international phone number of the pharmacy you got your prescription filled at? Can you get it and call them for us?

 

[CCS]

Hello

We source supplies from around the globe, and are based offshore and do
not own any real estate which is one reason our prices are low compared to
other pharmacies who must pay rent etc on their physical location. Clearly
then an exact location is not really possible. This is quite common with
pharmaceuticals - to be offshore concerns. We ship Avodart from the UK
though if that eases your mind.

Assuming you are interested from a hairloss point of view you can read
about us at the forum hairlosstalk.com for neutral information on our
company's reputation from posters there. Please note we are currently out
of stock of Avodart but we should be able to source supplies sometime in
the next week with luck.

Regards

Elitenetpharmacy.com



> ************
> Inquiry From
> ************
>
> First Name: ********
> Last Name: *******
> Email: *******************
> Department: General Inquiries
> Subject: Why don't you disclose your location?
> ******
> Date/Time: 2006-***********
>
> Inquiry:
>
> I'm interested in buying Avodart, but I find it odd that your site does
> not have contact information. Why the secrecy?
>

http://www.unitedpharmacies.com does not give an address either.

 

[hairwegoagain]

You will find that the site is registered in Panama. Complete contact info for the hosting service/registrant is available as a matter of public record.

 

[CCS]

cipla and united and others

elitenetpharmacy? scary. is that the only country they are registered in? Where did you find this?

I would feel safe about http://www.unitedpharmacies.com if I knew they bought from Cipla. My electrial engineering Indian roommate just got his PhD and said Cipla is one of the world's best companies. Since it is legal in India for Cipla to ingore US patents as long as the make the drug with a different patent, I wonder why an india based company like unitedpharmacies would need to hide its location. Cipla does not hide its location. The US can't come over there and shut a pharmacy down. It is interesting that techprofessor needed a prescrition to buy in india, and inhousepharmacy does not require one. This makes me wonder if these two pharmacies are in violation of india's laws, and actually get their meds from Cipla.

techprofessor, how much did you pay for finasteride or dutasteride while in india? was it nearly $30 for 30 pills? i'd like to get a prescription here and buy from a real store front pharmacy in india if i knew how to contact them. I've search for web pages on india's laws, but have come up empty. and if i did use a US prescription, india might call it in and my us doctor might report me, or at least would know where i was buying it.

$90 per 30 avodarts in the US. If i take 2 per week, that lasts 15 weeks, which is close to $25 per month.

 

[CCS]

I've read world health organization (WHO) reports about Cipla violating US AIDS drug patents, manufacturing millions of treatments, and selling them to poor countries for extremely low prices. http://www.cipla.com, according to the WHO report. You can read all about Cipla, but I could not find any page selling stuff directly to consumers. I emailed cipla and got no response.

that elitenetpharmacy email response I got was caught by my spam filter. i did not find it until today.

 

[CCS]

the eucapil email was not. they advertise their physical address, and I contacted one of the researchers and got two emails from him.

he did not say much except, "get a copy of the studies. what do they claim it can do?"

then in the second email he said "I was not part of the design team, but I know one of the researchers who was."

This, after i gave him probing questions.

 

[CCS]

my advice to anyone buying overseas dutasteride

my advice to anyone buying overseas dutasteride is to buy real proscar in the US with a prescription and cut it in 8 pieces and take one every other day, for $6 per month, while taking the dutasteride. That way if it is fake, they still get 0.31 mg per day. 0.2 mg per day regrows 82% as much hair as 1mg per day, in the smaller trials merk did before deciding what dose to use in phaseIII trials. I'll bet whoever made the decision on the dose to use in the phaseIII trials had to give some very convincing evidence to the company head.

and hairwegoagain, I need to know where you got the panama info, and if it actually means they are based there or get their drugs from a different location from where the rest of britain does. This key info could mean a lot, but I need to know for sure, not that I think you would lie.

 

[hairwegoagain]

Re: my advice to anyone buying overseas dutasteride

and hairwegoagain, I need to know where you got the panama info, and if it actually means they are based there or get their drugs from a different location from where the rest of britain does. This key info could mean a lot, but I need to know for sure, not that I think you would lie.

College, you can look at domain registrations by going to any of a number of databases - register.com is a common one. Simply run a search.

Just because the domain registration shows Panama does not mean that the guy operates there. It just means that the website may be hosted there. People should take a clue from that fact alone. However, if you want to do some research, it can be a good starting place for tracking down more detailed information.

 

[techprof]

college,
in india they may or may not need prescription. I took my US prescription with me.
It costs 2.5$ for 10 finasterides 5 mg pills. Probably dutasteride costs the same.

By the time I visited India I was paying 10$ per month for genuine GSK dutasteride.
So I did this just to test what I had used in the past. My main fear was I started finasteride after reaching NW6. I wanted to make sure I wasn't wasting my time earlier.

 

[CCS]

So $2.5 for 10 finasteride 5mg compared to $11 for 10 dutas. Looks like it is cheap in india and the site is making money. Good to know. Was it $2.5 with or without insurance? I assume that since you had been getting real GSK for $10 per month, that was with a prescription in the US? Because dutas is $11 for 10, which is $33 for one month.

I'm a little confused on your timeline. You reached NW6 before using 5ar2 blockers, then got a prescription for finasteride in the US, then got GSK somewhere for $10 per month (where?), then got worried you had been wasting your time with the finasteride (or the GSK?), so you went to India and got finasteride 5mg 10 for $2.5, but don't know how much the dutas there is but think it is the same price. I'm confused. How much did it cost to go to india? Could you get a prescription for avodart in the us if you wanted to?

 

[CCS]

If meds in india are that cheap, then an india based company has little reason to sell fakes. I'll look on register.com and other similar sites and see where many URLs are hosted, and then see where each of these pharmacies is hosted. And I'll ask my roommate to ask his parents how much drugs cost over there. But his parents are so rich I doubt they even know. He is moving back there though because he can hire servants for next to nothing. He also says that over there most people don't make payments by mail or internet much. They pay servants to go wait in line and pay their utility bill, same with getting a driver's license. Over here, you wait in line yourself for 2 hours and the DMV. There, a servant does that and the paperwork and you just show up when you are needed. He buys his textbooks there too because a $100 textbook here costs $10 there, but he does it when he flies home.