Students may want to think twice when purchasing prescription and over-the-counter drugs. As more medications are prescribed each year, the chances of unknowingly creating deadly over-the-counter and prescription drug combinations also increase. Experts say open communication with doctors and pharmacists can prevent problems.
A report recently released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that deaths from accidental drug interactions rose 68 percent between 1999 and 2004, and has been on a steady climb since the early 1990s. Unintentional drug poisonings accounted for nearly 20,000 deaths in 2004, according to the CDC, and is the second-leading cause of accidental death in the United States, behind vehicle collisions.
A coroner recently discovered that R&B singer Gerald Levert, 40, died late last year when he mixed the pain medications Darvocet, Percocet and Vicodin, with Xanax for anxiety and two over-the-counter antihistamines. He was taking the mix for pneumonia, a shoulder injury and a 2005 Achilles tendon surgery. It was originally believed that Levert died of a heart attack.
Less severe interactions can also cause side effects. Mixing a sedative to help induce sleep and an antihistamine for allergies can slow reactions and make driving a car dangerous, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
Josh Dahlenburg, pharmacy manager at the 18th Avenue and Chambers Street Bi-Mart in Eugene, said the most common accidental drug-to-drug interactions he sees typically cause an upset stomach. He added that these problems can be avoided by not taking the medications at the same time, and instead waiting a few hours in between.
Dahlenburg said that a life-threatening interaction would be mixing any drug with Coumadin, which he explained is typically taken after a stroke to prevent future blood clots.
“It’s basically a blood thinner, and mixing it would cause the blood to thicken,” he said.
Gregg Wendland, manager at the University Health Center pharmacy, said he doesn’t come across the issue often on campus.
“With our student population, most people are healthy, so it’s relatively rare,” he said. Wendland added that students with diabetes should especially be careful because mixing medications can raise blood sugar levels.
Wendland said he saw the problem more often when he worked off-campus in community pharmacies.
“We’d have to call doctors a few times a day and say, ‘Did you know they’re taking these together?’” Wendland said.
The pharmacists said that problems are more likely to happen if customers use more than one pharmacy to order many medications, which Dahlenburg said is called “polypharmacy.” The pharmacies don’t use the same patient records, making it difficult to spot possible complications from one pharmacy to the next.
Wendland said customers often shop around to find the best value in the community or online.
Bi-Mart pharmacies and the health center pharmacy use a computer database that stores patient records and includes their medications.
The computer system will alert a pharmacist of any dangerous interactions, Wendland explained. He added that pharmacists are also trained to spot any problems.
The pharmacists recommended that patients use one pharmacy so that records will spot any medication interaction problems.
“If you’re getting them at two or three other pharmacies, we won’t have those records,” Wendland said.
Erica Jefferson, spokeswoman for the American Pharmacists Association, said patients should also talk openly to their pharmacist and doctor.
“We always recommend that patients and consumers communicate and talk with their pharmacist and physician about their medications,” she said.
Wendland said the health center pharmacy offers the advantage of quick service if any problems occur because the changes can be done in-house. He said he typically works closely with doctors at the health center when problems occur.
“There’s almost always some kind of alternative,” he said.
Patients can also go online to drug interaction checkers such as Drugstore.com. The Web site warns that mixing Coumadin and Aspirin, for example, is a “major” severity and warns the mix could be deadly.
Contact the crime, health and safety reporter at [email protected]
Dangerous combinations
Daily Emerald
March 7, 2007
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