The claims seemed a little overstated when I first read about Acomplia (rimonabant). Prescribed for obesity, it appears to reduce appetite, kill the craving for alcohol, nicotine and other drugs, and lower bad cholesterol while increasing good. It makes a lot of sense, when you consider this wonder drug, available in much of Europe but awaiting approval in Canada and the US, could actually work. Unlike other “diet pills”, this medication acts on the brain’s reward center, much like those prescribed to drinkers. If they’re lucky enough to get them, that is.

I took particular interest when a woman wrote from the UK recently and said her physician would not prescribe Topamax–very common in Britain. She said she wanted to order Acomplia from an online pharmacy because she was concerned about the side effects of Topamax and asked for my advice. As always, I urged her to work with a qualified health care provider, to find someone else, it’s really important. We never say otherwise, but I knew in my heart it wasn’t very helpful to her. I mean she’d just been rebuffed by a doc after spilling her guts. And it’s certainly not lost on me that many people order their meds online. So I also asked her to please keep in touch.

Fast forward. The nice lady emailed again today and said that after fibbing her way through the medical questionnaire, the package arrived within days, as promised, from her online provider. She’d already ordered her supplements, CDs, and had signed up at a “Health and Squash Club.” She reported to me today that both her craving and appetite are dramatically reduced. (She’s hoping to lose about 15 pounds.) She says it took a few days and she doesn’t know if it’s the meds, supps, hypno, exercise or combination of all (I vote the latter) but she’s thrilled with the early results and promised me it was okay to share her experience here.

Acomplia isn’t yet approved in the US and like many other meds, it comes with a number of potential side effects. One of the best sites I’ve found to keep tabs on this new medication, and is not affiliated with the manufacturer–but is littered with ads–is The Acomplia Report.  

I’m happy for our new MWO’er, who I’m still hoping will see a physician, and I’m also encouraging her to post on the message board, so she can share her experience directly. (She says she lurks but is too intimidated to participate.)  I told her please do. That many of our members would be most interested in following her progress. Including me!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 at 7:44 pm and is filed under Medications and research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.