During the past few years, troubling reports have come from patients concerning an acne drug that advertised a treatment, and relief, for those people suffering from severe acne. This treatment was intended for those patients for whom nothing else had worked. Isotretinoin, developed and distributed under the brand name Accutane, is a powerful and potent medication designed to treat acne and acne scarring in adolescents and adults. Though Accutane was intended to treat acne, a relatively minor medical problem compared to other more life-threatening medical conditions, the drug brought with it something far worse for some of the patients who used it. Please contact us for the latest Accutane lawsuit settlements news and information.
Accutane did accomplish what doctors and its marketers promised. For more than 50 percent of the patients who used it, Accutane successfully cleared up the most severe cases of acne. For every one in 500 patients, though, their acne became much more pronounced. But this was always noted as a possibility in the drug’s warning literature. When compared to Accutane’s other side effects, a temporary worsening of acne is the least of many patients’ concerns.
Accutane Side Effects
Over the course of the past several years, millions of people have been prescribed Accutane to treat their acne problems. A large subsection of this group of users have developed severe, chronic side effects that haunt them for the rest of their lives. Among the worst of the side effects is Crohn’s disease. For several reasons that have not been conclusively established, Accutane use prompts all sorts of chronic bowel problems, such as Accutane inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Irritable Bowel Syndrome and ulcerative colitis.
One of the most common Accutane bowel disorders is Crohn’s disease. Accutane Crohns disease is a chronic condition that affects a patient’s entire digestive tract. The symptoms are severe inflammation and pain radiating throughout portions of the gastrointestinal system, diarrhea, severe gas pains and cramping. These symptoms do subside, for a time, but they always return again with little warning.
Roche Pharmaceuticals, the Atlantic City, New Jersey, company that produced and distributed Accutane, insists that the acne treatment is an all-natural drug derived from vitamin A. In fact, in minute amounts, Isotretinoin is found naturally in the human blood stream. However, many of the complications and side effects of Accutane come about from an excessively high amount of the chemical in the blood stream.
For Accutane to work effectively for those suffering severe acne, it needs to be taken in high doses, and it is these high doses that cause the onset of Accutane side effects. For patients who took high doses of Accutane, many of them have experienced the onset of these severe side effects.
For those that become afflicted with Crohn’s disease, it is an ongoing ailment that cannot be cured, or even treated all that effectively. Crohn’s disease has been the basis for several Accutane lawsuits as well, as patients claim that the drug’s makers, and the doctors who prescribed it, were not clear about the drug’s potential serious side effects. If you or a family member has suffered from inflammatory bowel disease after using this drug, please contact us for a free no-obligation consultation with an Accutane lawyer representing clients nationwide.
