Are your nails growing green ? !

Sounds really scary , how in the crazy world that mushrooms grow on us ?? People use to joke about growing mushrooms on their head when they are bored , but it is not funny when your nails are growing fungi . Fungal infection on our nails are very common and it is not something pleasant to look at . The nails get brittle , dry and discoloured (sometimes blue /green ---> it can really look like moulds ) , the surface may turn uneven depending on individual . Treatment are readily available from the pharmacy . 

I'll talk about it one by one : 

Loceryl 

The nail lacquer like treatment that only needs to be applied 1-2 times a week . Drug name is amorolfine and it has a very good half life ( means it stays in the body for longer time ) that is why you only need to put on 2 times a week (at most) . But you need to pay for the convenience sake so of all treatment , this is the dearest , with a box costing RM99 . And for toe nail fungal infection you will need more than a box , as toe nail takes 6 months to grow out . 

Emtrix and Nailner 

Newer treatment in the market . Seen in the pharmacy of our country in the recent 2 years . There is no specific drug name for them as they are combination of few ingredients such as lactic acid and propylene glycol ( different brand with different ratio / composition ) . Very attractive packaging in pen form !! Easy to carry around and portable *double-love eyes* so you can slip in your pocket and handbag *thumbs up*. That way you will be able to apply 2-3 times a day . This formulation is slightly cheaper (~ about RM65 -70) because it has no drug ingredient in it . So the next question would be is it effective ? The answer is yes and no , if you compare to loceryl ( -  no ! ) but if you compare to not doing or applying anything (- yes !) . The idea is to slowly deactivate the fungal cells 'weakly' and slowly . 'Weakly' so you CAN use it even when you are pregnant or breast feeding , on the other side Loceryl is not recommended . If I were to say it crudely this is the same as wrapping your nail in hydrogen peroxide every night before bed , if you skin around the nail can take it . 

Not really a treatment but Break the glass when all does not work .  

Manicure / pedicure 

It's in trend to color your nails in dark colors ( navy , eggplant , wine  , toxic - I can go on and on with the nail colour names ) these days, so they practically cover all the uneven surface or green discoloration LOL  and your hands and legs feels wonderful and light after all the scrubbing and trimming right ?? *pick up phone and ring for appointment * 

Before you do that let me remind you that not all nail parlor disinfect their tools daily , I have been to one that I literally saw a cockroach J walking in the store . The problem is that most business owners are not usually around in their shop here in KL they hire staff from Philippines and Cambodia to work for them and I doubt that they would make sure you do not get fungal infection from their tools and most of them do use liquid and remover from cheaper source to cut cost , which in the long run causing thickening of the nail bed , thickening of the skin below of your nails and each session , you are paying RM150 or more *grab-iPhone-touch-calculator -app* . 

Pros and cons . 

Decision is yours .

Garcinia cambogia drink

The overly popular e x t r a c t that helps in weight loss .  Pharmacies are all stocking up on these , in drinks ( in water )  forms, in tablet forms and some in liquid syrup forms. Supplement stores like GNC also have them in abundance , so now which should you be buying and how well does it work ? 

They are suppose to shrink you by inhibiting the fat cells formation , the ideation is to stop fat cells that you already have to grow and to stop formation of newer ones . The good thing  about it , it is not invasive , unlike liposuction surgery . Very good for people that are thinking of maintain their slim figure ( then why do you need them unless you are not quite normal up the head ) but certainly not for people who is trying to loose weight . The reason being when you try to loose weight , you starve yourself , and with this tablet , you would eat obliviously as subconsciously you think the tablets are 'giving' you a shield . The equation in the end balance out . 

The tablets would be right for people with very strong self discipline on loosing weight and refrain herself from eating a lot ( in fact eating less than before ) then the tablets would work over time . 

The better ones I have seen in the market is a combination of garcinia with something that causes statiety, something like duromine ( which is ban in some country ) but slightly weaker so it does not promote anorexia and giving cardiac arrest . This formulation was seen  in Japan but I am not too sure about taking it due to radioactive leakage and radiation happening currently as I might need to have a baby in the future .

But really loosing weight isn't all about the kg , sometimes you need to work on the circumference and firming of cellulites which simply taking garcinia is just not going to do the job . The toning and firming can only be achieve by regular exercising and stretching , not forgetting applying the stretch mark creams too . Mind you to look good in clothes your bones are not the most important thing , your muscles and fat percentages are. 

Seriously the whole weight loss thing would take up a whole lot of time (from taking tablets to applying your stretch mark cream ) if you need to work to earn a living I think it's best to skip the whole garcinia pills as they do don't come cheap. Burn your fat by running , not burning your pocket is certainly a better and healthier choice . 

T u r u l i n e

I have an  o b s e s s I o n  on Japanese drug store and don kihote !! I can't seems to stop myself from going into one whenever I spot one of these store in Japan . My travel mate can't understand why I can be fascinated with them since they stock all the same things , just drugs and cosmetics . That's why I said it's an obsession LOL 

I am not going to talk about everything in don kihote . Just one of my favorite things in there would be the turuline hair removal wonder I think all girls should know about . It's just like wax strips except the wax is not pre- stuck on the wax strips sold in the pharmacy in Europe and Malaysia . It's a gel formulation kept in a tube , and the wax strip is provided separately . Why are they better than the wax strip , clearly because you don't have to warm those wax in between your palm before 'open' them up and stuck it on your arms and legs , it's stupid especially in winter months, how long do I have to keep rubbing between my frozen hands to warm the strip up ?!!!! Then another point is those wax kept in the strips on the shelves and warehouses for so long are simply not 'sticky' enough to remove stubborn hair on the legs !! *roll eyes* 

Turuline gel grips on to the hair by forming a bond created by 'similarity' in structure , they remove the stubborn hairs better . And the leave on residue is not pink or green in color that if you are not careful enough the whole world would know which waxing brand you were using ( because there is only 2 types sold in Malaysia ) LOL  

Turuline on the other hand is transparent and absolutely washable with warrrrrtahhhhh , yes I repeat , plain tap water ( you don't even need body cream or wash ) . 

Go to this link if you can't read Japanese and don't know how to use the gel >>>>

http://youtu.be/Y19mxQSqNY8

Don kihote basically sells everything at the cheapest price so you really need not go around and compare prices for this product . Just grab one of these when you first hit the store , chuck it in your shopping basket and off you go crazy with the other stuff in that store , you will not regret it , I promise you ladies ! 

Great listener

I have a childhood friend recently had an incident that made her have a crying meltdown . It was extremely new to me as she has always seems so calm and cool towards anything . I guess everyone has a breaking point , and somehow the bullying doctor hit that point of hers. 

She went to a doctor lately for some advice on her mother's condition , and the end result was told can be resolved with surgery. So they agreed to go for the surgery without much hesitation . But what they did not expect was right after the surgery , the condition may look worse than before , in fact it will look unusual until it settles down after a month or few months . Right after the surgery they went straight back to the doctor in the evening on the day of discharge as it is a day surgery , the doctor was a little ticked off and started screaming at them saying it is NORMAL ( exclamation marks to the maximum ) . My friend said he gave both her and her mother a LECTURE about them not understanding the word NORMAL . Well I thought , from her side of story , he is definitely ABNORMAL  *lol* 

So poor friend of mine rang me up late night started sobbing and complaining her bad experience to me over the phone . After listening to her half sobs and half story , I figure that it's probably the summation of bad communication skills and heavy workload of the doctor in the clinic . That aside , but I think patients deserve the reassurance they need . I comforted her by saying he was a good doctor but just lacking communication skills and patience , but then again I don't know if I would do the same as the doctor if I was a doctor working in that kind of clinic and in This country of mine , Malaysia. Friend of mine then said she would boycott that doctor and I offered to go look for a new doctor with her . 

So this is what I do as a pharmacist , even before I was working in private sector . We cover doctors asses in the government hospital , we help each other and that way we could save lives together . I don't agree with pointing fingers , some doctors bad mouth that retail pharmacist starting customers on high blood pressure drug unethically , and some pharmacist says doctor just get paid to give out MC so patients get to be excused from work . Hey , I think our country has enough racial and political issue , we don't need another professional 'beefing' issue . 

To me that's plain stupidity . 

Don't you agree ? 

P I G skin lining

I find this skin lining absolutely amazing , because apart from this animal's lining no other animal lining needs an obvious signage to be place clearly next to the product . Being closely related to this animal , as in my Chinese zodiac sign is THE boar , I am proud of it .

Well that's an excellent way to warn or tell everyone , to think before you 'touch me' . How I wish I could have that signage on me because that's the exact message I like to send to everyone else . I don't like to be touched except when I am having a spa or hair cut ( both I dislike but am force to once in awhile ) . Roomie says I am not an affectionate person . Well said I figure . 

Speaking of pig skin lining , I have some pharmacist story to tell . 

We have gelatin capsules that are porcine origin , so we have to put up a signage notifying our customers about it , just like that pig skin lining leather for shoes . I remembered typing those signage , designing them getting it approve by the management . It wasn't something I could not do in minutes , but I was really really really really  ( Carly Rae Jepsen song singing in my head ) tempted to put up a signage that says : 

      DON'T EAT ME OR TOUCH ME ! 

( even if you will die without me , because you won't go to heaven if you did )       

And that little devil was ringing and talking in my ears going : do it do it ! The angel on the other side said : don't be a racist and mean pharmacist . The logical mini drug queen immediately pops up and say : You would loose your job if you did that , so in the end my brain speaks louder than my heart , and I went on and type : 

        NOT suitable for Muslim

             and Jewish of faith  

(Contains ingredients of porcine origin ) 

The management approved the sign and pheww ! So I was that close to getting into trouble . 

When I was fulfilling my compulsory service and working in a government hospital , we had to remember which injections and implants products were porcine or bovine origins by heart . Some might say aren't they written in the pack ? Obviously not !! Because most of these medications are imported and places of manufacture are European origin or The USA , so the pharmacist would have to sit down and read all the information leaflet in the package , go onto the website and do your research , and some times send email or online chat to the manufacturing company to find out ( if you highly suspect it is porcine origin ) , and make a report if it is and get signature and approval from management to send out an email to ALL staff working in the hospital . In the end , update the table /record in the file in the shared folder to be viewed by all the paramedics working in the hospital . This is what a DIS ( drug info system) pharmacist does .

We keep an eye and remind the fellow clinical doctors in prescription selection just in case they might have overlooked that bit of information. 

So yessshhh , for those who didn't know , we don't sit there and just warm chairs . 

Morning sickness

My FB account has turn into a baby album in 2 short years . My friends are either expecting or having their first child , at sooooooo young . Well I figure apart from me , the rest of the world prefer to have their babies at a younger age because it is so much easier to avoid bad shapes post pregnancy as recovery is better. It's all about collagen and skin elasticity to deal with stretch marks and skin folds after all . 

I figure as a pharmacist and also good friends to them , I owe them a blog about morning sickness . I get morning sickness too , especially Monday morning when I see the to do list is longer than my toilet paper rolls flatten out .

Not every preggy gets morning sickness . And it certainly does not mean that the lady is unhealthy to have morning sickness. If you are not worried , because you had your first child and you did not have morning sickness then you are wrong . Each pregancy is different and you may not be morning sickness free for the second pregnancy , unless you have decided to implement the one child policy in your familyland . 

Many ladies believe taking drugs during the first trimester is harmful , I must clarify this mistake as it is not the case . The reproduction , limbs , and all parts important development is actually during the second trimester . The antiemetic drugs available to help with morning sickness has quite a few different one , some are stronger and dearer , usually for complicated cases when normal maxolon ( trade name ) also can be called metoclopramide (drug name ) . Medications are divided into many categories , pregancy category for instant . Just like restaurant cleanliness grade , category A is completely safe . 

My hot mama friend who had morning sickness throughout the first 6 months category ended up suffering for low birth weight and the child was certainly weak upon birth and all because she believes that no medication is the best remedy . Which sometimes isn't the case if you think further . 

Maxolon does not work for all preggy , so ......

Ondansetron ( drug name ) or Zofran is a anti-emetic for very complicated morning sickness . It 's funded in the government of Australia and Europe under the PBS but not in our country . And the tablets are really expensive , I am talking about few hundreds per box , and the box has only 8 tablets LOL ,but if you need it you 'll need it . Generic is available but no one would want second best for their child anyway , right ? 

Ok , you may want to ask what causes it ? Well , i am just going to say luck ?? Some say it is heriditary , if you mom has it you will ? Or some say if your child have lots of hair at birth , you would suffer morning sickness badly ? Too many stories I have heard but strong link to one single factor . So , I'll say best of luck and enjoy your pregnancy as much as you can . 

After all not all ladies have the chance to be pregnant and a mother . 

Organic vs synthetic

Back to no  n e e d  so strong for our face and body . My customers usually ask what do you use on your face , to have such fair skin ? What about organic product ? Are they good ? 

Let's look at them closely . Go through their pros and cons separately and then you could make your final decision yourself .  Organic product is a very strong marketing tool these days , people spend thousands dollars on their packaging and advertising to promote them , therefore they certainly don't come cheap . In comparison to the normal product , organic products are 20% dearer in price in general . 

The product are genuinely very simple products , with no additional preservative and parabens in the making , so they normally have very short expiry. For true organic products , 28 days after the making of the product , it should be discarded . Which make selling of such product in a commercial way is literally impossible , so go figure yourself . 

Natural products don't work if you are old , as in when you literally can afford them you are too old for it . Why ?? Because by the time you get to that age , you  would have expose you skin and hair to all sorts of chemical , and organic products would not give you the satisfactory result that your body is use to , and you would give up using it in no time . Think about it even Johnson and Johnson is chemical , so your body has been train to work with much stronger products , you think organic products are going to give you 'drastic' change ?? No . In no time you would frustrated with the money you've paid and then your friends would have paid you a 'compliment' saying your hair look so 'normal' , as in no difference . The thing with organic is about starting all over , meaning training your scalp to start all over with organic , you would have to go through a phase of being flat haired , pimple breakout , dull hair and skin before the hair and skin  goes back to it 'caveman' condition . Then they are said to be back to the original 'setting' of the skin , and that's when your friends would ask what do your use ? And you can answer -just organic soap *smug*  ! 

And if you are so lucky not only having  money but also the luxury of doing nothing , meaning a lot of time to spare , then you could start making your own shampoo and face soap at home . Now that's REAL organic . 

Synthetic products are not all bad , when you get older , such as those perimenopausal and menopausal women , I think you would need things that would work , and I reckon it's only synthetic products could give such prominent results . 

If you have the time , check out my hair dye blog for more understanding on organic hair color .