Has anyone experienced discrepancies between how a medical condition would be treated here vs in a Western country? I mentioned this to a friend and she said that it’s very common for Japanese doctors to be very conservative with dosage.
I have herpes simplex virus, and the recommended dosage (by the drug company itself) is twice what my doctors give me. The doctors said a higher dosage “doesn’t work” like I think it would.
Also, years ago I tried to get Yaz, a very common birth control pill in the west. My doctors told me, ‘its not BC”, which is baffling.
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I don’t have specific links, but I’ve read in this sub many times that dosages are different, almost always lower than people’s home countries
Your Japanese doctor is correct, higher dosages don’t work like we think they should. The “recommended'” dosages are based on broad averages but individuals have very different drug “response curves”.
In fact many doctors & researchers in the West are now also thinking that maybe it’s better to start with lower dosages, perhaps as low as 1/4th of the recommended dosage. One reason is to lower the potential side effects, which for most drugs is correlated with dosage.
Anyway, drug companies have incentive to give a higher recommended dosage than necessary for most people, as long as the side effect rate is still borderline acceptable.
We, on the other hand, should want *the lowest possible* *dosage* that still works.
Now of course if you have cancer or having a heart attack, even Japanese doctors wouldn’t start you with lower than recommended dosages. But for non-life critical drugs, it may be better to start with the lowest dosages first then adjust upwards as necessary.
Medicine dosage is based on several factors. One of them being the average or median body weight. Japanese are not as big as westerners.
I would like to say that it might not only be because of West versus Japan, but issues with individual doctors in Japan. I went to a doctor to treat my facial paralysis and the first doctor did not give me enough medicine, so I got really worried and went to another clinic. The 2nd doctor prescribed me a lot more saying that it’s important to get a high dosage at first for this particular condition. The point is that getting a second opinion might be something that you should do. It might not be because it’s Japan, but because that particular doctor doesn’t have the knowledge or proper information.
Sounds like you need a new doctor or to order the herpes medication online
I don’t have that type of herpes but I did have shingles and my doctors gave me enough for 1000mg daily
I don’t think yaz is available here. Favoir 28 is what I used but I just have an iud here.
yaz is one of the few BC covered by insurance (an entire BS system here for medical users of BC) as it is indicated to treat PMDD. Insurance covered pills – not Yaz but some others – were around before BC was approved for contraceptive purposes and were hilariously labeled as “not for BC use”. I’m thinking the dr maybe was obtusely referring to that….
yes. my wife took alprazolam 2mg in our home country. here we were told the maximum available is 1mg. I assume the same is true for some other medications
Yes, the dosage differs. Xarelto (Rivaroxaban) is available as 20mg in other countries, but in Japan it’s 15mg. Likely this is to account for different average body weights.
Whatever the dosage you’re prescribed, double it ✌️