All alternative remedies are not what they seem to be. In fact, some may simply be conventional medications packaged in a different way, a doctor from the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver reports.

When Dr. Stephen C. Dreskin asked a Chinese-American woman to show him the Chinese medication she claimed worked “much longer” at healing her skin inflammation and itchy rash than the medication he had ordered for her, he found that she was using a standard antihistamine that should have been available only by prescription.

The patient produced a standard preparation of the drug astemizole, labeled in English but packaged for distribution in Asia. She had bought it over the counter in a local Chinese pharmacy.

While the drug did not harm her, astemizole is no longer on the United States market because it has the potential to cause serious side effects when taken with other drugs, Dreskin explained. At the time his patient bought it, it should not have been available over the counter, he noted. Nor should it have been touted as an herbal or Chinese remedy.

“This is the first time I’d seen something like this,” Dreskin, a clinical immunologist, told Reuters Health.

When the patient said she had taken a Chinese medicine, “I’d not imagined she’d taken a proper pharmaceutical,” Dreskin said. “There is an alarming part to (this story). The drug she was taking has potential side effects. That is why eventually the government took it off the market.”

A letter detailing his findings is published in the May 10th issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Following the incident, Dreskin reported the case to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Dreskin was told that there are many over-the-counter medications sold illegally that are dangerous to consumers. It is very hard to crack down on the offenders, he said, who will buy products sold legally over the counter in other countries, and bring them into the United States, where their sale is prohibited without a prescription. These products can be labeled any number of ways, and are often sold in health stores or ethnic pharmacies.

And the FDA may not be able to do much about it, Dreskin said. “The government has other fish to fry. I felt motivated to write this letter,” he said. “There’s always an opportunity for people to be deceived. I didn’t want this happening.”

He urged physicians to ask patients what they are taking. In addition, patients should be encouraged to bring in the alternative preparation if there is any question about what it is that they are using, he added.