Fluoroquinolones Safety Concerns and Warnings (Part II) – Blog Post by Asrar Qureshi
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FLUOROQUINOLONES
Continued from Previous……
Some of the problems associated with fluoroquinolones
use are particularly alarming and must be paid attention to.
“Patients
should tell your health care professionals if you are taking a diabetes
medicine when your health care professional is considering prescribing an
antibiotic, and also if you have low blood sugar or symptoms of it while taking
a fluoroquinolone.
For
patients with diabetes, your health care professional may ask you to check your
blood sugar more often while taking a fluoroquinolone. Early signs and symptoms
of low blood sugar include:
•
Confusion • Pounding heart or very fast pulse • Dizziness
•
Pale skin • Feeling shaky • Sweating
•
Unusual hunger • Trembling • Headaches
•
Weakness • Irritability • Unusual anxiety”
This is serious. Diabetics are more likely to
have infections and treatment of infections in diabetics is more challenging due
to the presence of diabetes itself. They are most likely to get prescription of
a fluoroquinolone drug. In uncontrolled diabetics, many of the above events
occur even in the absence of an antibacterial drug. It is quite possible that
they may relate drug side effects to their diabetes, rather than the drug. It will
compound the problem for them.
We in Pakistan, have additional compounding factors.
§ We have low literacy
rate. Even if a warning is printed on the box, our population cannot read it.
§ Majority of
patients buy part of a pack. Whatever is printed ‘on the pack’ does not come with
it and patients therefore remain unaware about it.
§ Generally, the
doctors do not give adequate information to patients about their treatment; be
it due to paucity of time or lack of consideration. Younger doctors are generally
better in this regard; foreign qualified ones are even better.
§ Discrimination
is inherent in our social fabric. Higher status people get better attention and
information while lower status people neither get due attention nor proper
information.
§ As a community,
we have a misplaced sense of bravery. We are liable to taking risks which are
totally senseless and completely unnecessary. Even when we know the side
effects, we tend to ‘face’ them rather than avoiding them.
The summary is that fluoroquinolones are a certainly
a very useful class of drugs. The advent of fluoroquinolones has helped to effectively
treat some tough-to-treat infections such as typhoid and post-surgical complication.
Fluoroquinolones are a reliable group of drugs which can be used in a large
variety of infections. These are popular worldwide and extremely commonly used
in Pakistan. However, safety profile of fluoroquinolones has been under
question for long. Gatifloxacin and Temafloxacin were voluntarily withdrawn world
over due to safety concerns.
It is important that this topic is brought
under discussion time and again and patients made to identify, understand and
report such issues immediately.
Concluded.
Reference:
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