AmyG wrote:It was recommended by 3 different OBs! Tums wasn't cutting it, so they said to get the Zantac. I mean, it totally helped with the heartburn. I just have to wonder if that might have caused my cancer. Maybe. Maybe it was just bad luck. Who knows.
I'm just so pleased to be in NED status. No matter how the cancer got there in the first place, for now, it's gone!
Nope - You had cancer in your body even before you were pregnant with your child. It doesn't grow and metastasize that quickly! I figured my wife's was probably in her system between 7 and 9 years before she was diagnosed based on the size of her primary. Colon cancers rarely grow that fast. It takes probably over year for a polyp to form big enough to just be seen in a colonoscopy. That's generally why they do them for at risk people every three years instead of 5. Had she not skipped the 50 year colonoscopy they may have caught it before it metastasized and spread.
The Zantac issue is one of contamination of a product. Not the active drug itself. Somewhere along the way they were not careful in the chemical process for synthesis of the active ingredient and the NDMA was produced as a side product in much greater concentration than it would ordinarily be in the process. This was poor quality control in manufacturing of one or more batches likely in a third world country making the materials for multiple pharma companies to sell as was the case with the ACE inhibitor CRguy mentions. When the process is done correctly NDMA is either not produced or below the limits of detection. Someone took shortcuts and heated the pot up or let the reaction go too fast such that NDMA was produced in detectable amounts and rather than further purify to remove it or toss it and start again made it available on the market. And don't go instantly jumping to conclusions that the Pharma company selling it is wholly responsible. Its a known issue where third world manufacturers sometime alter analysis reports or even forge them and likely provide these to the drug company making up the formulation capsules, or tablets. The FDA spends a huge amount of money inspecting these manufacturing facilities and doing audits of reports, even analysis of samples themselves. BUt they are very over worked and can't keep up with all the inspections. This is what probably caught this. The process for making Zantac's active ingredient is very similar to the one used to make the ACE inhibitor. As a result of the ACE inhibitor debacle the FDA or even the formulators started to look more carefully at similar drugs using the same sort of synthesis conditions. This is why we have an FDA and another reason drugs are expensive. The Paper trail for all this is huge and un-wielding.
The first FDA submission I remember learning about that my company submitted to the FDA was a paper submission that filled two semi trailer trucks. Now a days this is electronic submissions, but still its a huge amount of documentation to weed through, and this paper or data mountain grows with every batch made. Zantac was produced in gigantic quantities I assume in thousands of batches over the years, by many manufacturing facilities I am willing to bet.
I believe it might have been bad luck in most of our cases. Never a single event but many coming together to trigger it. I spent a long time trying to figure out why my wife might have developed Colon Cancer. It was pretty much absurd that she should have it and not me. She was much more physically fit/active ate properly! I worked as a medicinal chemist doing anti-cancer drug discovery. I was exposed to a lot of very nasty reagents every day, for over 20+ years. Things that cause mutations, methylate DNA, etc. Some of the anti-cancer drugs I synthesized where pretty nasty themselves. and at least three that probably everyone on these forums take are bad actors. If you were healthy and were exposed to Oxy, Irinotecan, 5-FU its quite possible you would develop cancers of some sort if not other conditions.
I think the ambulance chasers have taken over the world and convinced everyone, it seems, to believe they are a victim now a days and someone or something is responsible. Sorry but nature doesn't care and likely doesn't work that way. Everyone if they live long enough like as not will get a cancer of some sort is my belief. Our cells just wear out. You may die of something else before that happens but if not you will probably get something. My nearly 100 hundred year old grandfather I am sure had some sort of skin cancer that was being monitored. He spent his whole life outdoors as a farmer exposed to the sun and Roundup as well as Pipe smoke! He smoked a pipe for most of his life. But Cancer didn't get him. It was old age! He was relatively health up to the end I think he just gave up after he had to go to a nursing home. (There one week) He passed away 4 months short of 100 when my wife was fighting for her life in the hospital for the last time at the age of 57! Its genes I think. Some people have better genes than others and are better able to avoid the mutations or control them avoiding cancer until they wear out.
Good luck in your journey.
GrouseMan