In a message dated 11/13/2003 7:36:50 PM Eastern Standard Time, Talpianna at aol.com writes: > In a message dated 11/13/2003 5:00:26 PM US Mountain Standard Time, > Randi128 at aol.com writes: > Allergan is a pharmaceutical company, Allegra is the allergy med. > > > > Ooops, sorry! *mole blushes a delicate mauve* > > I just caught something in the online news about research being.done to help > determine which medications will help which people, based on genome > research. > It was looking more at pain meds, but the same is true for allergy meds: > different ones help different people. I remember when the news broke about > Rush > Limbaugh's addiction: I take oxycodone (sp?) on prescription but have never > been tempted to take it for mood-altering; my housemate, with very severe > rheumatoid arthritis, finds it about as effective as M&Ms. She takes > Benadryl to > help her sleep; it doesn't make me the least bit sleepy. > > My primary online hangout is the bulletin board of romance novelist > Elizabeth > Lowell, where quite a number of people suffer from migraines and share > information on treatments. It seems that any given medication will be very > effective for about a third of them, somewhat palliative for another third, > and > useless for the rest. Think of the time and effort that will be saved if > they can > just do a gene scan and tell exactly what will work for you. > > tal We had a discussion about a similiar subject on the list at one time. Yes, genetic research is amazing and allowing us to pinpoint who is at risk for diseases that range from your friends arthritis to glaucoma. Drugs that target specific genetic variations are still science fiction at this point, but we are moving towards them very quickly. It may be something that we see in the next 10 to 20 years. Remember that genetic testing is still reletively expensive and not indicated for most illness. John D. Barbato, OD