Off Label Use - Part 2
May 24. 2010
Topamax
6-months ago, the Judiciary Report wrote a series of
articles, beginning on November
19, 2009, regarding the "Off
Label Use"
of the terrible pharmaceutical drug Topamax and its debilitating
effects. "Off Label Use" is a term used when drug
companies promote their products for uses other than what they were
originally intended and approved for by the government.
Topamax is an epilepsy medication, but doctors,
under the instruction of pharmaceutical companies, began prescribing
it for other medical conditions, such as migraines, thunderclap
headaches, depression and as a diet drug, because they were paid to
do so. They greedily marketed it as a cure-all drug to cover a wide
range of medical ailments, when it is a dangerous pharmaceutical.
6-months later on Friday, May 21, 2010, Johnson & Johnson, the makers of
the drug, Topamax, pled guilty to pushing the pharmaceutical drug Topamax for
uses other than what it was approved for by the government, using doctors in pay
for play schemes, who then prescribed it to their patients under said
inducements. They have agreed to pay over $80 million dollars in government
fines.
I was speaking from experience when I wrote those articles last year, as I
had a stress induced brain hemorrhage and was prescribed Topamax in 2009, for
the headaches and head pains I began to experience after the incident, due to ongoing
acute emotional distress and harassment.
I resisted taking the medication, a fact that was
noted in my medical records more than once, as based on my
significant understanding of pharmaceutical drugs, it did not seem
like something someone who had experienced the unprecedented type
of brain hemorrhage I did, should be prescribed.
However, a female doctor, who was a trainee at the
teaching hospital, got upset during a follow up visit they ordered
and demanded I take the medication.
Concerned they would discontinue treatment, while
I was still very sick from the hemorrhage and angiogram they
botched, leaving me with nerve damage in my right leg, I took the
Topamax.
Within two days of doing so, I was as sick as a
parrot, due to the Topamax. It was worse than the stress induced
brain hemorrhage. I developed a condition known as
metabolic acidosis, which is the end result of medication creating
an environment in the body that promotes acid in the blood, which
is horrible. In essence, it is like blood poisoning.
The first signs of it was a very elevated heart
rate, which simulated the feeling of having a heart attack and
involuntary hyperventilation, which is the lungs trying to blow
off the excess carbon dioxide, thanks to the Topamax.
It reached a crescendo on the day before
Thanksgiving last year. I fell asleep and one hour later, was
awoken by a terrible pain on my right side that was wrapping
around from my back to my ribs and depressing my breathing to the
point I had stopped taking in oxygen. In short, I was choking to
death in my sleep, with a sharp pain on the right side of my back
and ribs, constricting to the point, I could barely move.
When I was finally able to move and stand up, I
started breathing again, but when I slowly walked over to a
mirror, I noticed I was shaking like a leaf, a term known as
"tremors" which was created by the Topamax.
I asked my mom to call 911, as I was concerned I
would lapse into a coma and die and the pain in the ribcage
constricting my breathing, was still there. It literally hurt to
breathe. The ambulance took me to the hospital that originally prescribed
the Topamax, after the paramedics noticed the tremors.
The hospital did everything they could to limit
liability, realizing I was experiencing a very adverse reaction to
the Topamax, an epilepsy drug, they had prescribed to me, someone
without epilepsy, who was experiencing headaches and head pains (linger
effects of the hemorrhage) and nerve pain in my leg (due to the
botched angiogram).
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