A close elderly relative of mine is currently being treated for a very serious and rare cancer-like condition. The exact details of the conditions are complex however suffice to say that without medication it would certainly be fatal.
He travels some distance every two weeks to a specialist hospital where he is examined, biopsied and prescribed an ever changing and ever growing cocktail of pharmaceuticals. The list had finally grown to 10 different tablets and powers to be taken throughout the day.
On his last visit he received some good news – the condition seems to be responding to the chemotherapy. The down side of this was more chemotherapy and yet more changes in the drug regime.
A few days after getting home he started to have a bad episode every morning at about 11 am. His blood pressure would plummet and his heart rate would crash down to 35 BPM. The effect was completely debilitating, so much so he couldn’t get out of his chair for hours.
After a few days of this recurring he rang his cardiologist who was shocked by the readings. He ordered my relative to immediately call the emergency services as the heart and blood pressure readings were right in the danger zone.
The next day he had another episode, however unwilling to make a fuss he didn’t call the emergency services but instead took a taxi to the cardiologist. However by the time he got there his pulse and blood pressure had returned to normal.
Depressed when he returned home he got the distinct feeling that the cardiologist didn’t believe him. He gave me a call and he discussed his fear that maybe there was a drug combination that was causing complications. He was concerned that he was on so many powerful and rare drugs that no specialist could be aware of all complications.
I immediately asked him for the list of drugs and logged onto doublecheckmd.com.
Within 5 minutes I had entered the drugs and symptoms. I was blown away by the sheer number of side effects and interactions. I pored over them and one side affect and one drug combination jumped out.
Amlodipine and bisoprolol when combined can seriously affect the heart rate and candesartan can
cause a precipitous drop in blood pressure.
I emailed off the results to him and armed with the data he called the hospital. The next day he took the long journey by train to hospital. After observation they agreed that the drugs combinations were the
cause of the issue and the interaction could easily be fatal.
Days later with new drugs in hand the episodes haven’t recurred and my relative has taken to punching in every drug himself into doublecheckmd.com
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