Questions worth asking your doctor about any new medicine

Ten questions, and none of them is rude

A good prescriber will answer all of these without hesitation, and several without being asked. A provider who becomes impatient at them has told you something more useful than the answers would have.

This list applies to anything you are offered — a registered medicine, a compounded preparation, or a supplement.

1. What is it, exactly?

The brand, the active ingredient and the registration number. Costa Rica's Ministry of Health named those three specifically in its October 2025 warning, and they are the fastest way to establish whether you are being offered a registered medicine or something else. If all three cannot be supplied, that is the answer.

2. What is it meant to do, and how will we know?

Ask for a specific, measurable outcome and a timescale. "You'll feel better" is not one. "We expect your HbA1c to fall by this much over three months, and we will retest then" is.

3. What would make you stop it?

The most revealing question on the list. Every medicine should have stopping criteria — a side effect, a result, a lack of benefit by a defined point. A prescriber with no answer has not thought past the first prescription.

4. What are the common side effects, and the serious ones?

Two separate questions. Common and tolerable is one category; rare and dangerous is another, and you need to know which symptoms mean stop and seek care today.

5. What does it interact with?

Bring the full list — prescriptions, things bought over the counter, and supplements. Supplements are the ones people omit and the ones that cause avoidable problems.

6. What needs monitoring, how often, and who arranges it?

Several medicines in this field require baseline and ongoing tests — kidney function, haematocrit, liver enzymes, B12. Ask who books them, who reads them, and what happens if a result comes back wrong.

7. What happens if I stop?

For some treatments the effect simply ends; for others, stopping has its own consequences. With weight‑management medicines the trial evidence shows substantial regain after withdrawal, and you should hear that before starting rather than discover it afterwards.

8. What does it cost — over a year?

Not the first month. Include the medicine, the consultations and the monitoring tests. Then ask what happens if it becomes unavailable or unaffordable, because supply of some of these has been interrupted internationally before.

9. What are the alternatives, including doing nothing?

Every prescription has at least one alternative, and "wait and measure again" is often a legitimate one. If the only option presented is the one being sold, you have not been given a choice.

10. Do you have a financial interest in this?

Whether the clinic owns or is paid by the pharmacy or the laboratory. Such arrangements are common and not automatically improper — what matters is that you are told, and that it cannot change what is prescribed or how much. A clinic that answers this plainly is easier to trust than one with no answer ready.

Three for anything compounded

• Was it made for me by name, against my prescription? If it was made in advance and held in stock, it is not magistral preparation whatever it is called.
• Which licensed pharmacy made it? Sterile injectable work requires capabilities that not every pharmacy has.
• What am I giving up by not having a registered product? No efficacy dossier, no registration‑grade stability data, more batch variation.

Two warning signs

• A price before an assessment. If treatment is quoted before anyone has seen your bloodwork, the order of operations is wrong.
• Urgency. A time‑limited offer on a medical decision is a sales technique. Nothing in metabolic medicine needs deciding this afternoon.

The boundary

These questions help you judge the offer. They do not help you judge the medicine — whether you need one, and which, depends on your measurements and your history, and belongs with a physician who has both. Asking well is how you get the most out of that conversation, not a substitute for it.