I was explaining to my daughter and her friend the bad experience I had with Darvon when my 5 impacted wisdom teeth couldn't be removed because of an infection the dentist gave me Darvon then in 1966. However, I felt so great that I decided to go skiing in Big Bear East of Los Angeles. This was a mistake so when I returned home that day (at age 18) I thought I was going to die. Also, I never felt quite right after having had to take this stuff. However, it might be important to note that I usually took no medicines at all then that were prescription ever, not even anti-biotics so this likely was the first pain killer that was strong I ever took in my life. After this (a few weeks later) they removed my 5 wisdom teeth by giving me Sodium Pentothal which is a strange thing too (truth serum). I felt pretty strange after this from the effects of both these experiences in my then young life. So, I thought I would look up Darvon to see why they don't allow people to take it now.
For example, my heart virus and other heart problems could have been first triggered when I took Darvon in 1966 all those years ago now.
Darvon, Darvocet Banned
Controversial Painkiller Sunk by Dangerous Heart Side Effects
Reviewed by
Louise Chang, MD
Nov. 19, 2010 -- The FDA has at last banned Darvon, Darvocet, and other brand/generic drugs containing propoxyphene -- a safety-plagued painkiller from the 1950s.
New proof of heart side effects, in studies of healthy people taking normal doses of the drug, prompted the FDA to act.
An estimated 10 million Americans are taking
Darvocet and other propoxyphene painkillers. They should NOT immediately
stop taking the drugs, as there is danger of serious withdrawal
symptoms.
Patients taking the drugs should instead
immediately contact their doctors for help switching to different
methods of pain control.
"Don't delay," warns Gerald Dal Pan, MD, MHS, director of the FDA's office of surveillance and epidemiology.
The FDA action comes nearly six years after the
drug was banned in the U.K., and nearly a year and a half after the
European drug agency banned it.
The public interest group Public Citizen
petitioned the FDA to ban the drug in 1978 and again in 2006. The latter
petition caused the FDA to take the matter to an expert advisory
committee, which in July 2009 voted 14-12 to ban the drug.
But the FDA overruled the panel, instead asking
Darvon/Darvocet maker Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals Inc. to conduct studies
of the drug's effects on the heart. The results of those studies led to
the FDA ban.
"The drug puts patients at risk of abnormal or
even fatal heart rhythm abnormalities," John Jenkins, MD, director of
the FDA's office of new drugs at the Center for Drug Evaluation and
Research, said at a news conference. "Combined with prior safety data,
this altered our risk assessment."
The FDA ban comes too late for Public Citizen, which blasted the FDA for waiting far too long to protect the public.
"Due to FDA negligence, at least 1,000 to 2,000 or
more people in the U.S. have died from using propoxyphene since the
time the U.K. ban was announced," Sidney Wolfe, director of Public
Citizen's health research group, says in a news release.
Wolfe says Public Citizen will call for a
congressional investigation into who at the FDA "was responsible for the
loss of so many lives in this country."
Darvon, Darvocet Banned
Controversial Painkiller Sunk by Dangerous Heart Side Effects
continued...
Jenkins says although it's impossible to know
exactly how many deaths are linked to propoxyphene, an FDA study shows
that more deaths are linked to the drug than to either of two
alternative opioid painkillers, tramadol and hydrocodone.
Dal Pan says that people who have taken Darvocet,
Darvon, or other propoxyphene drugs for a long time are not at increased
risk of heart problems.
"Long-term users should not worry: The heart
effects are not cumulative," he says. "Once people stop using
propoxyphene, the side effects should go away."
More information about the propoxyphene ban is
available on the FDA web site -- including, for the first time, a video
news release.
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