Search results below include Worst Pills, Best Pills Newsletter Articles where your
selected drug is a primary subject of discussion.
September 2023
Patients taking the oral antidepressant drug desipramine (Norpramin) should be aware that it has clinically important interactions with many other prescription medications. Public Citizen’s Health Research Group has designated desipramine, a tricyclic antidepressant, as a Limited Use drug; antidepressants in other drug classes are safer and better tolerated.
June 2023
Some drugs, including commonly used prescription and over-the counter medications, can cause photosensitivity, increasing the skin’s vulnerability to sunlight. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and antibiotics are the drug classes with the strongest evidence for photosensitivity.
May 2023
Patients taking the antifungal drug voriconazole (VFEND), which is marketed in both oral and injectable forms, should be aware that it has clinically important interactions with many other prescription medications.
February 2023
Patients taking the frequently prescribed antidepressant nortriptyline (PAMELOR) should be aware that it has clinically important and potentially dangerous interactions with many other prescription and over-the-counter medications.
January 2023
Patients taking the drug sotalol (BETAPACE, BETAPACE AF, SORINE, SOTYLIZE) should be aware that it has clinically important and potentially dangerous interactions with many other prescription medications.
June 2022
Patients taking the drug quinidine should be aware that it has clinically important and potentially dangerous interactions with many other prescription medications.
August 2020
Patients taking the commonly used blood thinner warfarin (COUMADIN, JANTOVEN) should be aware that it has clinically important interactions with numerous other prescription and over-the-counter medications, as well as some dietary supplements.
July 2019
Read about the growing body of evidence showing that the commonly prescribed fluoroquinolone antibiotics increase the risk of potentially fatal ruptures or tears of the aorta, the largest blood vessel in the body.
April 2019
Drugs are the most frequent cause of taste disturbances. In this article, we identify more than 60 commonly used prescription medications that have been linked to problems with taste.
September 2018
In this article, we discuss results of new research linking the widely overused fluoroquinolone antibiotics to an increased risk of life-threatening damage to the body’s largest blood vessel, the aorta.
February 2017
One of the biggest-selling but most overprescribed classes of antibiotics in the U.S. is the family called fluoroquinolones. Learn why the FDA required the addition of new black-box warnings to the labels of these antibiotics that describe risks of several disabling and potentially permanent side effects.
July 2016
Summer is a terrific time for healthy outdoor activities, such as walking, hiking, biking and swim¬ming. But for an unlucky few, certain medications can lead to adverse skin reactions following exposure to the sun. Find out whether you are at risk and how to protect yourself.
April 2016
In this article, we discuss results of new research linking the widely overused fluoroquinolone antibiotics to an increased risk of life-threatening damage to the body’s largest blood vessel, the aorta.
October 2015
Fluoroquinolones are the biggest-selling and most overprescribed classes of antibiotics in the U.S. Learn why Public Citizen's Health Research Group designates two of the five available fluoroquinolones as Do Not Use and why the other three should be used only in limited circumstances.
May 2010
The article reviews 12 prescription drugs, many of which are top-sellers, all of which are greatly overpriced in comparison to older "versions" of the same drugs. The patents on the old drugs expired so the "innovative" companies patented these new products, gaining a patent on them, and, for all practical purposes, using them as a license to print money. There is no evidence that any of the new ones are better than the now less-expensive, old versions.
October 2009
Antacids can interact with a number of medications, either increasing or decreasing drug effect.
April 2009
This second article about drug-induced dementia or delirium lists and discusses an additional 79 drugs that can cause these reversible kinds of mental deterioration. The two articles collectively review 136 drugs that can cause these serious side effects, especially in older people.
October 2008
Tizanidine (ZANAFLEX) is a muscle relaxant for which more than 3.8 million prescriptions were filled in the U.S. last year. The article lists more than 64 drugs with which it can have dangerous interactions resulting in excess sedation, difficulty breathing or dangerously low blood pressure that can result in falling.
September 2008
Thyroid medications are among the most widely-prescribed drugs in the U.S. In this article, we review 29 different medications that can have harmful interactions with thyroid medicines such as levothyroxine (Synthroid). There are four major kinds of interaction problems that can occur:
• Certain medications can decrease the absorption of levothyroxine resulting in lower levels in the blood.
• Other medications can increase the rate at which the body gets rid of levothyroxine, also resulting in lower thyroid levels in the blood.
• Other medications can cause changes of levothyroxine binding in blood, decreasing the body's ability to use levothyroxine.
• Levothyroxine can affect the safety or effectiveness of other medications by raising or lowering the levels of these other drugs in the blood, causing them to be either infective (lower levels) or dangerous (higher levels).
November 2006
You should stop taking fluoroquinolones(listed in the article) and immediately contact your physician if you experience pain in any tendon while taking one of these antibiotics so you can be switched to another antibiotic.
February 2006
Antibiotic-associated diarrhea (AAD) is quite common and its incidence varies from 5% to 20% of patients depending on which antibiotic they are taking. The article lists some of the drugs most associated with this potentially life-threatening adverse reaction.
December 2004
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) now requires that the professional product labeling, or package inserts, for all fluroquinolone antibiotics must warn about the possibility of peripheral neuropathy (nerve damage).
A list of the fluroquinolone antibiotics currently available in the U.S. appears at the end of this article.
September 2004
You should consider that all fluoroquinolone antibiotics have the potential to interact with warfarin and your physician should be ordering blood tests to monitor the status of your blood clotting if one of these antibiotics is needed and you are using warfarin. This is the safest thing to do.
September 2003
DO NOT stop taking any of the drugs listed in the table without first consulting your physician.
You should report any alteration in your sense of taste to your physician if you are taking a drug.
July 2003
In this study, the researchers evaluated 100 consecutive patients who went to the emergency room and received a prescription for a fluoroquinolone antibiotic. Of the 100 patients, 81 (81%) received a fluoroquinolone antibiotic for an inappropriate use. In 43 (53%) of these patients, a fluoroquinolone was found inappropriate because another antibiotic was considered first-line treatment, and in 27 (33%) patients there was no evidence of an infection and therefore no indication for the use of any antibiotic.
March 2003
You should avoid these "new" single mirror images of old drugs, not out of concern about their safety or effectiveness, but because they are the same as the old drugs. In the long run, they cause economic harm both to individuals and to the health care system because they have come on the market with extended monopoly protection. Article lists some examples.