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The Hollow Men of Hims

(www.alexkesin.com)
203 points quadrin | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.702s | source
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mlsu ◴[] No.44383056[source]
The explosive growth of Hims and other side-channel healthcare businesses (using this model -- telehealth combined with compounded meds) is entirely due to the "legitimate" healthcare system's complete and total failure to serve patients' needs.

You can maybe talk about the hollow men of Novo and Lilly, who colluded with PBMs and insurers for most of a decade to push the cost of insulin analogues into the stratosphere, taking billions in profit while people died in agony rationing insulin. (in horrible agony -- blood turning into acid until brain death)

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turnsout[dead post] ◴[] No.44383070[source]
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ggm-at-algebras ◴[] No.44383242[source]
I am unsure why you have been down voted because fundamentally your point is correct. Health is a fully regulated space, and no entity should be supplying medical products without adherence to requirements appropriate to their role. Compounding GLP-1 seems to me to be in the higher bar space.
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1. cjbgkagh ◴[] No.44383436[source]
I owe my health to gray market peptides, and for that reason and others I’m very happy they are available.

Also recombinant DNA processes for making these meds is pretty mature tech it’s not like some crazy trade secret.

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2. hunter-gatherer ◴[] No.44383483[source]
Can you expound on your use of peptides? My nephew was diagnised with crohns at the age of 10, but they now figure he was being mistreated when symptoms started at age 4. He is somehow still alive, but there have been significant developmental problems due to crohns and an overuse of steroids and other weird medications in his treatments.

His parents have been doing IV infusions for the past two years, which seem to be having more of a positive impact than anything the health care system did, and now they are about to start peptide therapy, which is something I know little about.

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3. cjbgkagh ◴[] No.44383676[source]
Sorry to hear that, my heart goes out to him. I post a lot about it here on HN, you can scroll through my prior posts, about half are on this. Also feel free to email me. Chrons is pretty common in people with hEDS, which is what I have, so while I don't have direct experience with having it myself I do know quite a few people who have had it.

Edit: had to do a quick double check, but the foods that I eat, and don't eat, are specifically for hEDS/ME/CFS brain fog which I believe is IL-1B cytokine related and I think it's plausible that this probably has a crossover to Crohn's. Listing it here as something to consider; A diet of zero sugar and zero fruit, a lot of kale, chia seeds, and pumpkin seeds. I do one meal a day, and an occasional extended water fast. For vitamins I take TUDCA, DIM, and D3.

Prolonged use of steroids can cause dysautonomia which causes a plethora of other issues. So understanding dysautonomia could help. I also use a weak ligand approach to dysautonomia which is unusual with the use of modafinil and amitriptyline.

Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) is a rather benign medication that's been known to help. There is little downside to trying it - so it can be used as a bit of a diagnostic in addition to treatment. Of course DIY research rules apply.

One of my more out there theories that seems to be quickly gaining traction is that a low dose of GLP-1 agonists can be surprisingly good for autoimmune conditions.

Most of my other peptides are hEDS focused and include VIP, Ipamorelin, Selank/Semax, and BPc157/TB500. Though I really only take the ipamorelin and semaglutide these days. These are a bit more risky but since my alternative is to be very sick I have a different risk tolerance profile compared to most.