How would you feel if a medical device (or medication) you relied on was recalled for harming patients?

1 Answer

Answer :

answer:I can tell you exactly how I’d feel, because I’ve been there! I’ve had issues with two different drugs in the past. One was a painkiller I had taken twice daily for quite some time (I think it was Celebrex?) that got recalled/reclassed with a ‘black box’ warning because it was causing people to have heart attacks. That was freaky and scary. I still take a similar pain medication, with slightly less risk. It’s a balancing act, and a quality of life issue for me. The other was an anti-seizure medication (Topamax) that I was taking to control mood swings. I’d been having a twitchy eye problem for months, which my doctor wrote off as stress (seemed reasonable at the time), when my eye started to feel swollen and like there was pressure behind it. He still didn’t know what was wrong. When I got my meds refilled, I happened to read the patient pamphlet for the Topamax again, and saw this side effect warning: Some side effects can be serious. If you experience any of the following symptoms, call your doctor immediately: eye pain. I called my doctor’s office and left a message about this, and his nurse calls me all frantic, “Stop taking it right away, and see an eye specialist immediately.” Turns out, Topamax can cause glaucoma. (Luckily, we caught it in time, and I don’t have glaucoma.) I had been taking it for six months, dealing with the eye twitch/pain for at least 3 of those months, and no one told me! Only time I was ever angry with my doctor, and boy was I pissed. He was sincerely apologetic… it’s a rare side effect, and he was unaware of it. I hope he learned to pay closer attention to people’s medications when they’re having an unexplained problem.

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