Did you know that one of the main side effects of the acne drug Accutane is inflammatory bowel disease? If you’ve been experiencing severe bowel discomfort after taking this medication and are thinking you might have IBS, you may be wondering what actually causes this problem.
Irritable Bowel Syndrome, or IBS, is one of a host of issues that happen when the bowel becomes inflamed. These problems develop for a number of reasons, including heredity. IBS tends to be less severe than related problems on some levels but more severe on others. In Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, for instance, the inflammation may be more localized and more severe. With IBS, the inflammation can be more widespread but less severe.
At any rate, IBS and other problems that can be caused by Accutane have no cure. They can be treated for symptoms in a number of ways. Many people who have these problems lead fairly normal lives. They simply have to take certain medications, avoid certain foods, or make certain lifestyle changes that allow them to keep their disease under control.
What Causes the Problem?
One of the main issues that people have with the makers of Accutane, a drug mainly taken to cure severe cystic acne, is that no one knows why this medication causes such side effects. There really seems to researchers to be no rhyme or reason as to why IBS and other diseases occur because a person takes Accutane.
Before Accutane was put on the market as an acne drug, it was being developed as a drug to take alongside chemotherapy because it shrinks cancer cells. However, researchers also found that it helped dry up the skin’s oil glands, effectively erasing cystic acne problems. When the drug was released, physicians knew how powerful it was and that it might have some bowel related side effects. For this reason, Accutane was only prescribed for short periods of time and was not normally prescribed for those with a history or family history of bowel diseases.
The problem, though, is that later on, it was found that Accutane could cause IBS and related problems in individuals with no history of bowel problems at all. There are many speculations as to why this is, but no one really knows for sure. Some speculate that the manufacturers of Accutane knew a bit about what the drug could do to the bowels but never released that information to doctors and patients.
What People Are Doing About It
Now, many people are suing the makers of Accutane because of their bowel related problems. Across the country, people are in litigation against the drug manufacturer because the problems related to Accutane are far reaching and have long-term, sometimes lifelong, consequences. So far, many of these lawsuits have settled in favor of the plaintiffs. Because of this, Accutane has been taken off the market. However, many, many more people are coming forward each month with symptoms that may be related to their use of this controversial and powerful drug.
Author Resource:
George Williams is the author of this article on Accutane Lawsuit 2011 .
Find more information about Accutane Lawsuit here.
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.look4articles.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.look4articles.com/images/rss.jpg "XML Feed For RSS")