Are Our Medications Safe to Take?
T he recent death of popular Christian writer Rachel Held Evans prompted me to write this article about the safety of prescription medications. No formal cause of death has been offered in Evans’ death.
However, it’s been said that early on during her health crisis, she suffered a severe allergic reaction to an antibiotic.
Whether or not the drug set off a cascade of events that eventually led to Evans’ death remains to be seen. But it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard of such a thing.
Ironically, two people that I personally know of recently suffered adverse medication reactions that were bad enough to warrant an ER visit for both and an extended hospital stay for one of them.
So it got me thinking.
How safe are our medications?
Are some medicines just bad for certain people?
Are there some medications that shouldn’t be in circulation due to excessive adverse reactions or for other reasons?
Let’s delve into some real-life situations concerning medication effects and reactions.
By now, many of us have heard about the December 2017 case where a Vanderbilt nurse mistakenly gave a patient a paralyzing anesthetic. The patient was sent for a full-body scan after experiencing a subdural hematoma and vision loss.
The patient had anxiety about the procedure and was prone to claustrophobia. So, the doctor prescribed Versed, an anti-anxiety medication with sedative properties.
However, the patient received vecuronium instead, which is a neuromuscular blocking medication. It causes paralysis and is generally used to prevent patients from moving during surgery. However, it also paralyzes the breathing muscles.
It should be noted that usually only certain medical professionals with a higher skill level than the nurse in question are supposed to even have access to the drug. So what happened?
Most hospitals, including Vanderbilt, use electronic cabinets to dispense medications. A staff member or nurse searches for a medication on a computer.
In this case, the computer system had an override feature which the nurse tripped, allowing the vecuronium to be dispensed.
The nurse typed “VE” into the computer and chose the first medication that the system suggested, which in this case was vecuronium.
The first error seems to be that the system shouldn’t have allowed her access to this medication in the first place.
The second, in my view, was user error, the nurse. Shouldn’t she have realized her mistake? She first selected the wrong drug and didn’t appear to question whether or not she had the right drug once it was dispensed.
Only time will tell, but clearly, the system of dispensing these medications is flawed.
As humans, we all make mistakes and I’m sure this nurse is haunted by her mistake.
Nurses are overworked and often given more responsibilities than any human should have to handle. The system needs to change.
The reaction that Rachel Held Evans experienced to her antibiotics is nothing new. Many people are sensitive or allergic to certain antibiotics or other medications. In fact, some prescription drugs have the potential for not only allergic reactions but toxic effects, as well.
Recently, awareness of a newer class of diabetes drugs causing toxic side-effects and possible death has been making the rounds. The drugs are collectively known as SGLT2 inhibitors and marketed under the brand names Invokana, Farxiga, and Jardiance.
It turns out that in rare instances, these drugs can cause Fournier gangrene, a flesh-eating infection that attacks the genital and anal regions. The disease spreads quickly and kills off tissue.
Let that sink in.
If you were offered these drugs and were told that there was even the slightest chance of this happening, would you take the drug?
The problem is that most of the time, doctors don’t caution patients about potential adverse effects. And pharmaceutical inserts are usually so technically written that lay people wouldn’t understand them. Plus, the print is so tiny that a person will usually give up trying to read it.
I was fortunate enough that when I was diagnosed with mixed connective tissue disease, my rheumatologist informed me of “a very small risk of going blind. So we’ll have to monitor your eyes carefully.”
Of course, like many doctors, he downplayed it. But, I have to give him credit. He told me about the potential effects. That’s more than what most doctors do.
In the end, I decided not to take the medication. I value my eyesight and my body tends to have a record of challenging the odds. It wasn’t a risk I wanted to take.
I once knew a mom who had a teenager who was home sick for a week, missing out on his classes. The teen had a cold that apparently morphed into a painful sinus infection.
The mother brought her son to the doctor, who commented, “We’ll have him good as new.”
She was handed eight prescriptions as the doctor discharged him. She thought it seemed excessive, but the doctor was well-known and highly respected in her town so she didn’t question it.
She brought the prescriptions to the pharmacy and the pharmacist called her to say that if he filled every one of those medications, her son would stop breathing. He said he wouldn’t fill them all because the son would die and he would lose his license.
He advised her to get back with the doctor to rectify the situation. The doctor’s comment was that “he just wanted to make sure the child felt better”. He removed four of the prescription orders and she returned to the pharmacy. The pharmacist seemed satisfied.
The mother would later learn that the doctor in question was actually going through his own health issues (doctors are human, right?) and wasn’t exactly himself. This same doctor had surgery two days after overprescribing medication that was thankfully caught by a conscientious and observant pharmacist.
Every prescription drug has safety information detailed on the drug’s website and sometimes with the medication insert included with your medication (although, as I previously mentioned, you usually have to have x-ray vision to read it).
It details stuff like indications (what your medication is prescribed for), side effects, and contraindications, among others.
If you’ve followed any of my other stories here on Medium, you may already know that I have a condition called myasthenia gravis (MG). One of the hallmarks of the disease is that patients are very sensitive to medication and many medications should be used with extreme caution, if at all.
I know of two people with my disease who died in the ER within minutes of being given medications.
In the first case, the patient went into the ER with severe dizziness due to an ongoing ear infection. The hospital’s intent was to give her the first dose of antibiotics in the ER, then send her home.
But, the hospital gave her an antibiotic that is known to flare MG and one that the patient pointed out had previously put her in ICU.
She never left the hospital alive. The medication pushed her into what is known as a crisis, where her breathing was affected.
The other case involved a gentleman I knew who lived not far away from the city I live in. He had been experiencing a gastrointestinal ailment. He presented himself to the hospital.
He was diagnosed with a virus and it was also discovered that his electrolytes were off-kilter, including his magnesium levels.
He was given a number of medications in the ER, including Phenergan, to prevent him from vomiting and a magnesium infusion. He died within a half hour of being given these medications.
While Phenergan isn’t on the blacklist for MG, I know when I’ve been given one-quarter of the recommended dose, I can barely move and my breathing gets very shallow.
However, magnesium is strongly contradicted for MG and it appears that if the hospital thought he needed it, they needed to proceed with more caution than they did.
For him to have died that fast from a reaction, the infusion was likely given too fast. I’m not a medical expert and don’t know if it could have been avoided altogether.
I realize that the majority of medications on the market have good safety margins. That is, that for the majority of patients who are given these medications, they are safe.
I’m very thankful for the medications that work for me and keep alive and functional. Literally, I would not be here if it weren’t for these life-saving medications.
I’ve also been on the receiving end of medications that could have potentially harmed me. I’ve had hospital visits where the medical staff attempted to give me medications I’d previously been told to steer clear from due to my condition.
In addition to medication errors, medical errors also contribute to premature deaths. In 2018, Johns Hopkins did a study about errors within the medical community. It found that in the U.S. alone, more than a quarter of a million people die from medical errors each year.
Clearly, this is an issue that needs to be addressed more closely.
The truth is that patients and their families have to advocate for themselves. The medical community is a busy, high-stress environment. Medical professionals are busy caring for dozens of patients each day and are often overworked. And they are human.
When in doubt, ask questions until you get answers that satisfy you.
You can even ask a doctor if they were in your shoes, would they take the medication being prescribed to you.
When I set out to write this article, my aim was to encourage patients to advocate more for themselves and be aware of all ramifications when being treated with a medication.
My goal was not in any way to be disrespectful towards the medical profession. I have a network of medical professionals that I have high regards for and credit for keeping me alive.
Thanks for reading.
Are Our Medications Safe to Take?
Research & References of Are Our Medications Safe to Take?|A&C Accounting And Tax Services
Source
0 Comments