You have a cold, you probably quickly reach for that de congestion.
Well, an FDA advisory committee says they actually don't work.
Yeah, this is big news to a lot of people. So what do you do now? Right.
Well,
we have our medical expert with us this morning to give us a little bit of advice,
getting you the right stuff.
Dr
Pyle Coley with us. Thanks
Dr Coley for being here. Good morning. Ok, let's start.
Let's start
looking
like, what do you like?
You know, I feel like we've, we've been fed this information for so long.
What do we do now? This
detest has been around for decades since the 19 seventies, in fact,
but even in the 19 nineties,
a lot of physicians were raising concerns about
its efficacy in this particular pill form.
But what ended up happening is that early two thousands, there was a meth crisis.
So people were using the other decongestant pseudo
fedrin
and making illegal meth.
So that really got put behind the shelves and this
started taking a front seat even though the efficacy of py
ephrine, this particular decongestant was in question.
So the stuff that's behind the counter that works
the other stuff now,
which is so interesting because they make
billions of dollars off of these drugs that
we have found out don't work, don't work. So, the medicine works, it's called
and it works to constrict your blood vessels so that they're less leaky.
That's how it decongests you.
The problem is when you take it in a pill form,
most of it gets metabolized in the stomach.
So the amount that actually makes it to your bloodstream is
very little and the amount that gets to your nose,
which is where you're congested
is even less. So, what's your best recommendation of how we should take it? Yeah.
So nasal spray is still thought to work.
Obviously in the intensive care unit in the hospital,
we use it intravenously where it also works to squeeze the blood vessels.
But the problem is with how much of it is actually making it to the
and
there are other options as well.
If you have a cold or allergies, this is so wild to so many people.
You know, now everybody is going to checking their cabinets right,
to make sure what they have,
what kind of brands, you know,
what kind of medicines should we be looking for to make sure that it's effective.
So many of these cold medicines are combination medicines.
In other words, they have Benadryl in it. They have a cough suppressant.
Pyle
is a decongestant.
So I would just flip the bottle over regardless of
the brand because they're so any different brands and combinations
and look and see if it has py EPH
personally, I'm not wasting my money on it. Now, the antihistamine will still work.
The Pseudofed
behind the counter will still work. You can still get nasal sprays, not just the pe
nasal spray, but the a
that works to decongest as well.
You can use nasal uh saline as well, just like rinses to get all those chemicals out,
which causes the inflammation.
So there are lots of other options that still work. But if it says in
it, I don't think you should bother with it.
So it sounds like there's bits and pieces of it that kind of work.
But if you want the real deal, you got to get the stuff behind the,
behind the counter and they do take your driver's license for that
because they're tracking kind of how much of it you're getting.
And the FDA has a sort of a tough task ahead of them because
what's gonna happen now is you're gonna
look at this panel's recommendations and say,
ok,
should we give the drug manufacturers a little
time to swap out the ingredients that work?
Should we give them time to change these formulations or should we just pull it?
So, still think they're going to be on our shelves for the next several months,
possibly even years with the way things move.
But it really behooves us, I think,
to take control of what we're buying and spending our money
on the onus right now is really on the consumer themselves.
So make sure you're telling your friends at home and, and spreading that
and
to your family.
That's why I was saying that's why you have to watch the news.
We're helping you save money and get the right stuff.
This is such an interesting topic when we first heard about it. We're like,
I think it's $6 billion that people spend on these meds that don't work for years.
Like that blows your mind.
You know, and, and just last year, the Academy of,
of allergy actually wrote a citizens petition
to try to get this P
from the market.
But it really takes a story like this where the FDA puts their nickel down for,
I think change to start to happen just really
quickly because we only have a few seconds left.
What, you know, how long can we expect the FDA to take on this process? Now?
I think it will take a while.
It will take months if not years because this is a big process.
They want to hear what the citizens have to say.
So if you feel strongly about this right in to the FDA,
because your voice really does matter when it comes to what ends up happening.
But at least for now make sure you're being choosy because all that nice packaging.
On the front is very seductive
Nyquil Day.
All of those things that I used to reach for,
but what you're putting in there is just about as good as a placebo or sugar pill.
So you have the power.
Look at Dr
Coley, not just educating us but help you advocate for yourself, Dr
Coley. Thank you for being with us.