I think that I can get my head around certain things and try to e...

I think that I can get my head around certain things and try to explain to you that medications do not work for all people or affect all people the same way. Well, that sounds simple enough to say - DUH. But, it is actually quite complicated chemically. Human beings are not chemically the same because we have variations in our genes. Would you be surprised to learn that about 60% of adverse drug reactions involve certain chemicals (in some cases enzymes) that we already know what these chemicals or enzymes are and what the variants are among populations groups? Some times we can predict who would have an adverse reaction to what medications if we knew what gene subgroup the patient was part of. We could also predict whether the patient would metabolize a drug at the same speed as others or not. Metabolize means utilize the drug and then discard the by-products--mostly the liver is the recycling center of chemical waste. Anything that the liver cannot re-use, the kidneys gets rid of in the urine. Speed of metabolism is a very important thing because people who are slow metabolizers might actually experience over-dose. There are other differences caused by genes that can cause different reactions according to the individual person. I am interesting in following this site because I am wondering if the concept is flawed meaning that other parts of the body were ignored at the expense of controlling asthma and allergies of the nasal passages and lungs. OR - is there just a problem that relates to genetic differences in something such as enzymes and certain populations groups do just fine on Singulair with no problems and other people have some awful problems? This isn't my area. But, sadly, if I can spend two weeks looking at this and come up with at least a road map of what I am looking for to answer some important questions then people who do this for Merck already know the answers. Why do I say that? Because, the adverse side effects (major categories) correspond to important areas of leukotriene receptor location and activity. Maybe not necessarily this receptor but part of a chemical process that involves this receptor. The bottom line is that Singulair is the wrong medication for anyone that has adverse reactions. OR, there is a problem regarding the dosage that involves how fast the patient metabolizes the medication. Considering that there is a link to psychiatric adverse drugs reactions in Singulair and some medications for depression are linked to differences in metabolism due to enzymes, then there could be possibly something important to be learned from Singulair adverse drug reactions. The biggest problem is that pharmaceutical companies are not properly communicating with the doctors who prescribe their medications. Why not communicate to doctors to look out for side effects and be aware that there are gene variations among people that are directly linked to how the patient might respond to the medication? What happens if the patient belongs to the gene group that will have problems? If the pharm company does not tell the doctor to be on the alert, then the doctor tells the patient that it is not the drug that is causing the problem. Then the gene groups with the problems, go on the war path.