The Cost of PPH: $21,000 a Day...

Whittier, CA PPH, or Primary Pulmonary Hypertension, is a rare but debilitating lung disorder that is potentially life-threatening and has been linked to prior consumption of diet drugs such as Fen-phen and others now banned and no longer on the market. However, it can take upwards of 10 years for the symptoms of PPH, now known as Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) to emerge.

You could be sick, and never know it. So what's it like to have PPH?

Just ask Monica Sanchez. She's 28 now, and a successful entrepreneur, running her own shop called Village Sweets in Whittier that was recently featured on 'Peter Perfect' on the Style Network. Life, some might say, is 'sweet' for Sanchez these days. However, in reality the last dozen years of her life have been anything but.

Sanchez was a normal, energetic teen growing up in Whittier, warmed and tanned by the glow of the California sun. She played softball, ran track, and with what is described as 'knock-out good looks' became a cheerleader.However, life turned upside down for Sanchez and her family, when she became pregnant at 16. It was the pregnancy that put the focus on an emerging health problem for Monica...

Primary Pulmonary Hypertension. Electing not to abort the baby, Monica nonetheless became extremely ill during her pregnancy and had difficulty breathing. Sadly, after just five months the baby was born by caesarian section and did not survive. But by this time Monica was gravely ill, and doctors gave her little hope of surviving, either.

That's because doctors suggest that the median lifespan for anyone with PPH is three years. Had Monica's pregnancy never happened, she might have never known that she was a PPH candidate, and likely would have died young.

Instead, she survived long enough to be transferred to UCLA Medical Center, where doctors verified the diagnosis of PPH, which is a rare condition characterized by the pumping of blood in the wrong direction, resulting in an insufficient supply of blood to the lungs.

So far, Monica has beaten the odds. But life has been a challenge. For the past 11 years Monica has had to live with medication pumps chugging meds into her chest through a catheter tube 24/7. Sometimes the entry point for the catheter becomes infected, which immediately puts Monica back into the hospital, fighting for her life again. On a good day, however she will go about her business as best she can: no heavy lifting, having to walk slowly, and having to deal with profuse bleeding if the chest catheter comes loose, which it sometimes does. On stairs, she has to count to 10 for each step she takes, and her heartbeat is so loud that it keeps her awake at night.

And the medication pumped in an almost continuous basis to her heart costs a whopping $7,000 per vial. In a day, Monica will go through three of them. That's $21,000 of medicine EACH DAY, just to keep her alive. Thanks to Medicare, MediCal and her father's insurance, Monika can afford the meds that keep her alive, but the annual costs are staggering. She also needs to swallow upwards of 15 Viagra pills a day, for Viagra's propensity for dilating blood vessels.

However, at 28 she's still going, in spite of the challenges. Her candy store is thriving; she has a steady boyfriend, and she hopes to have another child someday. For now, however, she is thankful to have life, love and a livelihood, in spite of the formidable challenges.

Monika's PPH appears to be genetic. However, prior exposure to diet drugs is widely held as a link to PPH. Before they were banned, drugs such as Fen-phen were all the rage and weighty customers were swallowing them like candy. Some doctors were dispensing them with equal fervor. There was no hint as to the risks, dangers and adverse affects until it was too late—and many people are only now coming to terms with the fallout of that dependence on diet drugs, a bit more than ten years after the drugs were banned from the marketplace.

Various class action lawsuits have been launched against the manufacturers of these weight-loss drugs, as well as some physicians and diet centers for prescribing with such reckless abandon.

If you have been identified as having some of the symptoms linked with PPH, Monica's story serves as a preview for the kind of life you may be in for, and the challenges you may have to face.

Those challenges, as you have read, are formidable and costly. You, and your family will need help to pay the bills, and get through life. Anyone, or any entity responsible for your suffering needs to be held accountable.