Search results below include Worst Pills, Best Pills Newsletter Articles where your
selected drug is a primary subject of discussion.
March 2023
Learn about the numerous prescription and over-the-counter medications that can cause or exacerbate insomnia.
December 2022
Patients taking fluvoxamine (LUVOX), a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), should be aware that it has clinically important interactions with many other prescription and over-the-counter medications.
August 2022
A recent clinical trial indicates that many persons with obsessive-compulsive disorder who respond favorably to joint behavioral and drug treatment may then safely taper their medication use very slowly to elimination, though careful follow-up clinical monitoring is still essential.
July 2022
Medications are a leading cause of sexual dysfunction in women. Knowing which drugs prescribed or recommended by your doctor can cause sexual dysfunction will allow you to take steps to prevent or minimize this common, often troubling adverse drug effect.
September 2021
Gastrointestinal bleeding is a common cause of hospitalization and in severe cases can result in death. Find out which commonly used medications can cause gastrointestinal bleeding.
January 2021
In this article, we review results of a new study that sheds further light on the association between the use of specific antidepressants during early pregnancy and the small risk of birth defects.
October 2019
Next to Parkinson’s disease, drug-induced parkinsonism is the second most common cause of parkinsonism, accounting for about 8-12% of all parkinsonism cases. Find out which commonly used drugs can cause this condition.
June 2019
Read about the many prescription drugs that can interact in dangerous ways with grapefruit or grapefruit products.
March 2019
Read about the many prescription medications that can interact in dangerous ways with lithium, the drug of choice for treating bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression.
January 2019
Read about the many prescription and over-the-counter medications that can interact in dangerous ways with clopidogrel, a widely used anti-platelet drug.
August 2012
We review a recent study concerning the lack of evidence that antidepressants are effective in elderly, demented people. Find out the risks involved with antidepressant use in this population and learn about the safer, more effective nondrug approaches to treating depression in elderly adults.
July 2012
This article updates and expands our earlier list of drugs that can have harmful interactions with grapefruit juice. The list now includes 82 different drugs.
November 2010
This article discusses 36 drugs that, when used by people also using a corticosteroid, can either cause toxic interactions with the steroid or decrease the steroid's effectiveness.
October 2010
A study discovered that more than 1 out of every 10 people who went to a Parkinson’s disease center was found to have drug-induced Parkinsonism. These people were misdiagnosed as having the more common illness, Parkinson’s disease, which is irreversible and has unknown causes.
September 2010
The article list 34 other medications that can harmfully interact with sleeping pills, increasing their sedative properties and causing excessive sedation. Excessive sedation at night could increase the risk of falls, should the person get up in the night for some reason. Moreover, excessive sedation causing respiratory depression could be dangerous for people with certain disorders, such as lung disease.
August 2010
The article lists 34 prescription drugs that can have harmful interactions with vincristine. Recognizing signs of toxicity from vincristine early, as described in the article, is urgent because most of the side effects are reversible when the interacting drug is stopped and the patient receives corrective treatment.
June 2010
Find out why you should not use cough products such as ROBITUSSIN DM that contain dextromethorphan. Also view a list of 22 other drugs that can have harmful interactions with dextromethorphan.
May 2010
After explaining the symptoms of low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) the article lists 42 prescription drugs that can interact with one or more diabetes drugs to increase the chance of hypoglycemia.
April 2010
The article lists 53 drugs that can interact with the psychiatric drug ABILIFY to either increase the amount in the body, which can lead to toxicity, or decrease the amount rendering the drug less effective.
February 2010
Quetiapine (SEROQUEL) can interact with 26 different drugs, increasing its blood levels and causing dangerous side effects such as slowed breathing, dizziness and fainting. The article also lists 10 other interacting drugs that can result in lower blood levels, rendering the drug less effective.
September 2009
The article lists 24 drugs that can increase the toxicity of oxycodone if taken together with the drug and 11 other drugs that can weaken its effectiveness as a painkiller if they are simutaneously used.
July 2009
The article lists 38 prescription drugs that can harmfully interact with statin drugs. The article also advises that No matter what statin you are taking and regardless of any interacting drugs, you should notify your prescriber immediately if you develop muscle pain, weakness or a darkening of your urine.
.
June 2009
Taking alpha-blockers in combination with drugs for erectile dysfunction and with other drugs can cause dizziness and fainting.
In this article we will discuss alfuzosin (UROXATRAL), doxazosin (CARDURA), tamsulosin (FLOMAX) and terazosin (HYTRIN) and drugs with which they can have harmful interactions.
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.
April 2008
This article, based on a recent review in Drug Safety, lists 62 prescription drugs that can cause eye disease. The range of drug-induced eye diseases includes diseases of the eyelids, glaucoma, cataracts, retinal damage and optic nerve damage. As is true for drug-induced diseases in other parts of the body, you should consider newly developed eye symptoms beginning shortly after starting a new medication to be possibly drug-induced and consult a physician.
April 2008
The article lists more than 30 prescription drugs that can cause the serotonin syndrome.
January 2008
More than 70 million prescriptions a year are filled for these popular antidepressants, including Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Luvox, Celexa and Lexapro. This article gives details about more than 60 other widely prescribed prescription drugs that can have harmful interactions if used with these antidepressants. The two different kinds of interactions are also discussed.
October 2007
Because of evidence from a number of studies, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently required a “black box” label for all SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) antidepressants indicating that use in children could lead to an increased risk of suicidal behavior. Now comes a study published in the prestigious American Journal of Psychiatry (Volume 164, pp. 1356-1363) purporting to show, in effect, the opposite: the FDA warnings had caused the rate of pediatric SSRI prescriptions to plummet and as a result young people are killing themselves due to lack of treatment. If this were true, it would be a clear example of the unintended consequences of regulation.
The paper and its subsequent publicity appear to be little more than a public relations ploy. The editors of the AJP should not have allowed such gross misrepresentations to pass into print unscathed, and journalists who cited this study as if it deserved equal credence to the RCTs are just as guilty.
August 2007
The muscle spasm drug tizanidine (ZANAFLEX) combined with certain other drugs could cause serious complications such as drowsiness and can dramatically lower blood pressure, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The article lists 20 drugs to avoid if you are using Zanaflex so that you avoid these potentially dangerous interactions.
July 2007
Because of new information about increased risks of suicidal thoughts associated with the use of a variety of antidepressants, people of all ages should be monitored closely with all antidepressants after the drugs are first prescribed, switched or when the dosage is changed.
Do not stop using any antidepressants without first consulting the prescriber.
October 2006
Women who are pregnant and taking certain antidepressants take note: a recent study finds that you are more likely to have a recurrence of depression if you stop treatment during pregnancy, but another recent study suggests that taking certain antidepressants may harm your baby. Find out about this dilemma.
October 2006
If you are taking triptans, SSRIs or SNRIs and experience the symptoms of serotonin syndrome listed in this article, you should seek medical attention immediately. This is because of the possibility of life-threatening reactions such as nausea, changes in blood pressure or hallucinations that may be caused by the interaction of migraine headache drugs, called triptans, and certain antidepressants.
July 2006
The article discusses numerous recent examples of the harm that has been caused by off-label prescribing, including the heart drugs amiodarone (Cordarone), many antipsychotic drugs, topiramate (Topamax)and several antidepressants.
December 2004
Belatedly, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on October 15, 2004 that it is taking steps to inform parents and physicians about the risks of antidepressants when these drugs are used to treat major depressive disorder in children and adolescents.
October 2004
The Canadian equivalent of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Health Canada, issued a public advisory on August 9, 2004 warning that newborns may be adversely affected when their mothers take one of the family of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and other newer anti-depressants during the third trimester of pregnancy.
August 2004
At the request of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), eight out of ten manufacturers of newer antidepressants have agreed to add a warning about the possibility of an increased risk of suicide associated with the use of these drugs. The warning will appear in the professional product labeling, or package insert, for these drugs.(listed in the article)
May 2004
Fourteen years ago, in May 1991, the Health Research Group petitioned the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to require a warning in the professional product labeling, or package insert, of fluoxetine (PROZAC) concerning the risk of suicidal impulses in patients using the drug. Fluoxetine belongs to the family of antidepressants known as selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, or SSRIs. Read the warning we asked for back then.
February 2004
The January 5th issue of the Medical Letter, a widely respected source of independent information about pharmaceuticals and dietary supplements, has a review of the increasingly researched problem of the interaction between grapefruit juice and many prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Like most interactions between chemicals in the body, this one involves the impairment, by grapefruit juice, of the body’s ability to metabolize many drugs, leading to higher than expected — and sometimes dangerous — levels of these drugs.This article lists the drugs.
December 2003
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a Public Health Advisory on October 27, 2003 about reports of suicidal thinking and suicide attempts in clinical trials of eight drugs in pediatric patients with major depressive disorder (MDD).
September 2003
Canadian drug regulatory authorities reviewed reported cases of serotonin syndrome in the July 2003 issue of the Canadian Adverse Reaction Newsletter. The serotonin syndrome is a potentially life-threatening adverse drug reaction involving an excess of serotonin, a naturally occurring nerve transmitter.
November 2002
This is the second of a two-part series on drug-induced psychiatric symptoms that began in last month’s Worst Pills, Best Pills News. The information is based on the July 8, 2002 issue of The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics. Article lists drugs and adverse effects.
June 2002
Grapefruit juice can interact with a number of therapeutically important drugs that could lead to the possibility of toxicity. These drugs are listed in the article.
Login
Subscribe