Medical Help

[KenMacD]

We wonder if anyone would be willing to advise / assist us with the following:

Close friends of ours here in Ohio have a six-year-old daughter who has a congenital disease whereof the primary dysfunction is poor motility of the GI tract. There is no cure ? at best there are treatments that can improve function. Her situation is particularly serious inasmuch as she is experiencing severe problems at a relatively young age ? they?ve already put a ?port? into her stomach that allows release of gas, emptying the stomach when there is no motility at all and the contents are not released into the small intestine. There is constant danger of infection / necrosis that can result in the need for surgeries ? successive removal of parts of the GI tract ? obviously a grave concern.

She?s under the care of a pediatric gastro-enterologist at Children?s Hospital in Columbus and he?s recommended to the family a drug marketed as ?Motilium? (domperidone). But he cannot write a prescription for it because it is not approved for use in the US. (There are clinical trials currently in progress here, but the little girl is too young to participate, according to the trial guidelines.) However, the drug is available and widely used in most of the rest of the world, actually more commonly used to augment lactation in women who are breast-feeding but do not naturally produce in sufficient quantity. It is available in Mexico OTC -- without a prescription! ? I had Humberto look and he found it at the first pharmacy he tried.

The problem is, of course, getting it here to Upper Sandusky where the family can try it. Humberto could just buy it and mail it to us, or we can order it from one of those on-line Mexican pharmacies. (Canada requires a prescription, so that is more complicated). But I wonder if by mailing it from Mexico, there is a greater risk of confiscation or other problem ? also there?s the matter of the unpredictably long time involved.

The other possibility would be that Humberto buy and give it to someone who?s going to be returning to the US soon and would mail it to us once in the US. But would someone undertaking to do this be running any serious risk? I mean, beyond simple confiscation of the drug? I have no idea. In fact, I recently ? and unwittingly -- imported a different drug (alverine citrate) which is, likewise, not approved / available here. It was prescribed for me in GTO for my own use, and I simply brought it back with me.

As you can imagine from my brief description of the seriousness of the situation, any advice or assistance anyone might be able / willing to offer would be GREATLY appreciated!

My e-mail: gefriedberg@gmail.com