Betahistine for symptoms of vertigo Full article Published Online: 11 AUG 2013 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD010696/full will be interesting to see results
This study (yet to be conducted) will be a "meta-analysis," a gathering together of existing studies on the topic (efficacy of betahistine to combat vertigo). Consequently, it's not likely to be accepted by the US Food and Drug Administration as useful proof of safety and efficacy in the US. The rest of the world prescribes and uses Serc (betahistine) as the first-line, preferred therapy against vertigo in all of its forms, including Meniere's. Here in the US, the FDA claims there simply is no adequate safety or efficacy information to allow them to declare the drug available by common prescription and manufacture by US drug companies for use in this country. The fact that Serc does provide safe, ample levels of relief of vertiginous symptoms in the rest of the world is utterly dismissed by the FDA. This study, when completed and published, is not likely to change anything here, sadly. --John of Ohio
No, you can't get Serc with any ease in the US. Not one in a hundred ENTs even know about the drug, and less than one in a thousand GPs have ever heard of it. (Next time, ask your pharmacist if he or she knows about betahistine. "What's that?") If you want a prescription, you've got to do some medical educating of your doctor, as betahistine is not listed in the PDR, the all-encompassing Physician's Desk Reference. the source for most prescription drug info in most doctors' back offices (or online, where the doc will discover that the FDA takes an untoward view of Serc and doesn't let manufactured forms of it be sold in the US, just small-lot compounding pharmacist forms). Let us know, anyone, how a request for a Serc prescription goes in the US. How will the good doctor even know how much to prescribe, for how long? How will he know which compounding pharmacy to send the prescription to? This is, in every way, a totally foreign substance in the US. --John of Ohio
I meant easily gotten with a script any Walgreens will fill it. But I agree getting a doctor to write the script will not be easy, but we did have some members be able to get it from their doctor and they got it filled at Walgreens, deadeye I know for sure did and he is in the USA. I am curious to see the conclusion, because it does not help everyone like other MM treatments.
yeah, I got it at walgreen's without any problem my insurance stopped covering it however and it got pretty pricey but I can still get it if I want to it, like a lot of things I've tried worked wonders the first few months I used it then stopped.