Colace is only a stool softener and has very little peristaltic effect on the colon.
I saw something on the news a few days ago about an increase of people, especially young women, abusing laxatives to control their weight, and getting their inspiration from (where else?) TikTok. This is nothing new, and is extremely dangerous.
I’m still waiting for a drug called Sosumē.
Yep. Been happening for years.
It’s part of the bulimic mindset.
I knew dancers who were like this as young as 10-12 years old. When I was a teenager.
Love you db
Hi! To find out what I can do, say @discobot display help.
Jardiance is a SGLT-2 inhibitor. Diabetics often have serious kidney problems and these drugs are helpful with that, while the older diabetes drugs like metformin are not as helpful.
I am not a medical practitioner, and we do not get ads for prescription medication (over the counter, yes) in South Africa. Not that I watch TV…
My response to an actual prescription, for example I have been prescribed Welbutrin, is to ask for the generic version. It is always cheaper.
So “brandexx” would have wasted their ad money for me, but also counterintuitive to their marketing people, made money for the competition.
(I’m not sure if you have generics in the US, but we import loads from India)
Well, we in Canada are not. We all get American channels on TV, and we’ve seen countless prescription drug ads on those channels. I’d suggest that we’re all familiar with Jardiance and Rybelsus and O-O-O-Ozempic. 
And how they all make you move in slow motion while you play in the park with your grandchildren, while an announcer lists all the possible side effects.
Seriously, while we don’t allow direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising, we kind of do, and I think it’s due to the American advertising that we see, and the questions that it creates between patients and doctors. Thing is, that here, the advertisers are not allowed to say what the drug does, what it treats, and what side effects it has. It sounds like it would shut down drug advertising, but advertisers have gotten creative. And they are creative, believe me.
For example, one ad for Cialis, some years ago, featured a teen listening to music in the basement rec room. His father comes in, hands him a pair of headphones, the kid puts them on, and his father cranks the music. Kid loves it. Father goes up the stairs, meets Mother in the hall, and the two head off. For the bedroom, presumably. A chyron says something like, “Cialis. You know why.” (I cannot remember exactly.) But no dialogue, nothing said, no fine print, no claims as to what Cialis treats, and no list of side effects. Except we all know, as we’ve seen Cialis commercials on American TV. Yet the commercial is perfectly legal here, as nothing was said or implied as to Cialis except, “You know why.”
Like I said, “we kind of do advertise prescription drugs,” but within certain parameters. As long as nothing is said or implied about the drug, except for mentioning the drug name and an ambiguous tagline (e.g. “You know why”), it seems to be okay.
Yeah I did more reading after posting and Canada is mentioned as allowing “some” drug advertising, without really explaining what that looks like. I was wondering, so thanks for sharing that Cialis example…
The US does have generics, and yes, most are manufactured in India.
The majority of prescription med advertising is for new-ish products that do not yet have generic competition.
The manufacturer’s goal is to quickly create a groundswell of demand (and hence prescriber awareness) so as to maximize their revenue during the critical early years when generic competition is prohibited by their patents. And for any seriously expensive drug, to create enough screaming by the customers / patients that the medical insurers bow to that pressure and begin including that new drug on the list of things they’re willing to pay for.
Sort-of related to that, the USA is definitely a status-conscious consumer culture. Lots of people steadfastly believe that national name-brand products are massively superior to more generic or store-branded products. Doesn’t matter if we’re talking about canned fruit, shampoo, or washing powder. Or OTC medications.
Many folks love to crow about their brand of dish soap or how much better the national-branded aspirin works for them and their oh-so-discerning innards than does the store brand of aspirin. Sigh. So there is great value (to the manufacturer) in the various branded OTC meds pushing themselves as well.
This also happens a lot when some med that formerly required a prescription is re-regulated into the OTC category. A bunch of allergic rhinitis meds went through that a few years ago, and unleashed a blizzard of advertising “Now available without a prescription! Ask your pharmacist if [whatever] is right for you!!”
How long until we get an OTC med for “stoopid”?
If you make a commercial for it showing happy people riding bikes on the beach saying “brandexx made me smart”, you’ll sell a lot of it.
But people will only buy the [drug with the cool, name brand, not the generic version.(That would make you look stoopid.)
I am, now, properly edumacated; thank you. 
I just pulled those two out of my ass as well known diabetes drugs, so don’t read too much into it.
My point was that if they can get 1% more sales through advertising because a patient demands their name-brand drug, it’s probably worth the advertising.
And there’s also a certain element of advertising to doctors as well- when they see ads for Trulicity and Rinvoq on every night, those drugs are going to be at the front of their minds as well when it comes to prescription time.
More importantly, we’ve been conditioned to believe that expensive = better and higher quality. And name brands are more expensive, so they must be better, right? In some cases it’s absolutely true- something like Tide beats the crap out of Wal-Mart laundry detergent. But in others like canned tomato paste, there’s very little difference between Hunt’s and Great Value.
Now with OTC pharmaceuticals, it does get a bit dumb; I mean who actually buys Advil when there’s generic ibuprofen in the same dosage for 20% less right next to it on the shelves? You’re literally paying more for the name in that case.
That was my mistake. I meant to say “Cologuard.”
I’m sure that people who go off Ozempic , etc will regain the weight -but I’m not sure nearly as many will stop the drugs as go off diets. I take Trulicity for diabetes, not to lose weight. I will stay on it as long as my insurance covers it - because I have lost weight and Trulicity makes it very easy not to eat too much. It suppresses my appetite and makes me feel full longer.
I’ve done Cologard twice. I am at very low risk, and my doctor knows that I know just a little too much about the prep, and so far, so good.
I think that’s a little different than asking for advertised prescription drugs .Lots of people use Cologuard or FIT tests but it’s not really instead of a colonoscopy- because those tests will be followed by a colonoscopy if they are positive. If my doctor was recommending a first colonoscopy, I’d ask if I could do one of the easier tests, too. ( as it happens, I get a colonoscopy every five years, and one of the other tests the other four years. )
I wouldn’t know where to find a cite for this, but I’ve been told that many Walmart/Great Value products are actually re-labeled/-packaged name brands. Walmart is so big that they call up Green Giant and say sell us 2,000,000 cases of green beans with our label on them and GG says Yes sir, yes, sir, when do you want them? Or something like that. Feel free to clarify any/all of this.
That is sometimes the case, and other times, it isn’t. I often try generic brands. And sometimes they are undistinguishable from a name brand product. Sometimes they are different. The one that surprised me most was that supermarket canned cranberry jelly just wasn’t as good as ocean spray. I had expected those to be identical.