Search results below include Worst Pills, Best Pills Newsletter Articles where your
selected drug is a secondary subject of discussion.
July 2020
Patients taking the commonly prescribed antibiotic azithromycin (ZITHROMAX) should be aware that it has clinically important dangerous interactions with many other prescription medications.
April 2020
Patients taking the commonly prescribed antibiotic clarithromycin (BIAXIN XL) should be aware that it has clinically important interactions with many other prescription medications.
June 2018
Clarithromycin is an oral antibiotic that is commonly used to treat a wide range of bacterial infections. Learn why patients with heart disease should avoid this antibiotic unless no other suitable antibiotic is available.
February 2018
Fentanyl is a dangerous synthetic opioid that has been involved in an increasing number of overdose deaths in the U.S. Learn why this drug should be used only by cancer patients with breakthrough cancer-related pain.
May 2017
Find out which commonly used prescription and over-the-counter diarrhea medications can cause dangerous abnormal heart rhythms and cardiac arrest if taken at higher-than-recommended doses.
April 2016
If you watch TV, you likely have seen ads touting the advantages of the new oral antico-agulant (blood thinner) rivaroxaban (XARELTO). Learn why we have designated this drug as Do Not Use for Seven Years (until at least July 2018).
January 2009
The article lists 56 drugs that can interact with the three drugs for erectile dysfunction (ED): sildenafil (VIAGRA), tadalafil (CIALIS) and vardenafil (LEVITRA). Eight of the drugs are either nitrates such as nitroglycerin or a certain group of high blood pressure drugs.In combination with ED drugs, these drugs can cause a dangerous fall in blood pressure that could lead to a heart attack or stroke. Thirty-two other drugs can inhibit the enzyme that helps the body to eliminate the ED drugs, resulting in abnormally high blood levels of the drugs and a potentially harmful "overdose" even though you are actually taking the recommended amount. The other 16 drugs speed up the metabolism of the ED drugs, thereby lowering the blood levels and reducing the effectiveness of the ED drugs.
August 2008
The article discusses 273 drugs that can have harmful interactions with alcohol. Also reviewed are several ways in which these harmful interactions can occur:
1/ Medications Can Increase Alcohol Blood Levels
2/ Additive effects of medications and alcohol. One of the best- known drug-alcohol interactions is when alcohol, a depressant, is taken with other sedative medications, and excessive sedation or depression of respiration can occur
3/Alcohol can increase the blood levels of some medications leading to toxicity of these drugs.
4/ Alcohol also can reduce blood levels of some medications causing them to be less effective.
Although some of the interactions between alcohol and medications mainly occur in people who drink heavily (three or more drinks on one occasion), many of these interactions may occur with much lower amounts of alcohol use, such as one to two drinks on an occasion.
We strongly urge you to tell your physicians and other health care providers how much alcohol you are drinking so they can effectively assess the risks and advise you about the safe use of alcohol and medications.
May 2008
This article lists more than 60 prescription drugs that can interact with calcium channel blocking drugs such as amlodipine (NORVASC),diltiazem (CARDIZEM, DILACOR XR TIAZAC)or nifedipine (PROCARDIA)to either cause toxicity or to lessen the effectiveness of the calcium channel blocking drugs. Included in the lists are a number of drugs that we list in Worst Pills, Best Pills as DO NOT USE or LIMITED USE drugs. The article also explains the different kinds of toxicity that can ensue from these interactions.
December 2007
This article explains how to understand the International Normalized Ratio (INR), a test applied to a sample of a patient’s blood to determine how “thin” it is when you are using the blood thinner COUMADIN (warfarin). In addition, the article lists more than 50 drugs or dietary supplements that can interact harmfully with COUMADIN to cause the blood to be too thin (abnormal bleeding) or not thin enough which could result in lessening the effect of COUMADIN in stopping blood clot formation.
March 2007
Although the FDA medical officer in charge of reviewing ranolazine recommended that ranolazine's professional product labeling display a black box warning about potential disruption in the heart's electrical cycle, the drug does not have a black box warning.
March 2006
There is no reason to take telithromycin.(KETEK) There are safer and equally effective antibiotics available that are approved to treat the same illnesses. If you or a family member experience the symptoms of potential liver toxicity listed in the article, contact the prescriber immediately. Do not stop taking this antibiotic without an urgent call to your physician so you can be placed on a different, safer antibiotic.
June 2004
Telithromycin (KETEK) has shown to be no more effective than other antibiotics: amoxicillin, cefuroxime, clarithromycin, and trovafloxacin.
December 2003
This statement appears in the professional product labeling, or package insert, for eplerenone: “The principal risk of INSPRA is hyperkalemia. Hyperkalemia can cause serious, sometimes fatal, arrhythmias (heart rhythm disturbances).”
May 2003
Stronger warnings have been added to the professional product label, or “package insert,” for the fluoroquinolone antibiotic gatifloxacin (TEQUIN) about possible heart rhythm disturbances and problems with blood sugar control. This drug was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in October 2001 and its marketing brought to nine the number of fluoroquinolone antibiotics on the market.
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