While I often seek traditional medical care through physicians, I also know that I have to sometimes do a little research and decide if what is being recommended by my doctor actually lives up to my personal health and care needs and standards.

“Doctor Recommended” - Why you still need to read ingredient labels of the products your doctor suggests. 

This issue came up for me originally from my parents. My parents live in California and have  their whole lives. They both have pretty fair skin and have spent a lot of time in the sun. They've both had skin cancer that they've had to have removed, some of it being pretty scary - and they’re being vigilant about sun protection and wearing SPF. 

I remember a few years ago, when I was still just beginning my toxin free journey and trying to share with them about what products they should be using on their skin. My mom shared the sunscreen recommended by their doctor and I looked at the ingredients and I was appalled! It was shocking to see the ingredients in the sunscreen recommended by their dermatologist, a chemical sunscreen not a physical barrier sunscreen. Not only that, but it had ingredients in it that have actually been linked with cancer. Can you believe it?

I'm just gonna say it. It happens all the time. I'm not a physician, I do not know how doctors find brands to share with their patients, but maybe they're advertised to in the journals they read. Or maybe it gets dropped off by pharmaceutical rep that comes into their office and they're told, “this is the best cleanser, this is the best lotion, this is the best sunscreen.” I don't really know because I'm not a physician. But I can tell you that you still need to read ingredients, even if it's “doctor recommended”.

In fact, I did a quick little Google search because you know how I like to do that and I like to look at real ingredient labels. Well, I pulled up Cetaphil, which is one of the ones that people ask me about all the time. And the reason why people ask me about it all the time is because, guess what? It's “the number one doctor recommended cleanser”.  Although I don't know how you could call it gentle when you consider that it includes 

• Cetyl Alcohol

• Propylene glycol

• Sodium lauryl sulfate

• Sterile alcohol

• Methylparaben

• Propylparaben

• Butylparaben. 

As you can see, multiple parabens are in Cetaphil. If you still have Cetaphil at home, no judgment. If you need to learn more about parabens and other endocrine disrupting chemicals, you need to go back and listen to some of my older podcasts. Parabens are definitely something you want to avoid, yet doctors continue to recommend Cetaphil over and over again. 

Cerave is also another one that has been recommended all the time. And I'm not kidding you when I hear over and over “but my doctor recommended it.” Okay, so let's look at Cerave ingredients:

• Petroleum, which you may not know but petroleum is a byproduct of oil refining. It's actually not allowed in Europe and it often has heavy metal contamination, it's just not good. I have a whole podcast on mineral oil and petroleum and why you need to avoid it. 

• Phenoxyehanol

• Disodium EDTA

Not good ingredients at all. 

Again, I’m not quite sure how doctors decide which products to recommend. But maybe they just aren't keeping up to date with knowing about ingredients, knowing about endocrine disrupting chemicals being in so many products.

Those are just a couple examples of products where I have specifically heard that they were recommended by a doctor. And yet, a red flag goes up because I bet that doctor is not reading the ingredient label and isn't considering how harmful some of these ingredients are in these products. That’s why it’s important to educate yourself and be your own health and consumer advocate.

If you have a doctor recommended question for me, I would love to hear it. You can follow me on Instagram and send me a DM there. I'm @themeganmikkelsen. Or you can email me at megan@detox.design. I would love to hear from you.