Perhaps you would not necessarily think that an “all natural” medication that promises a wealth of hope for acne patients would meet such a tarnished, dismal end, but the story of the acne drug Accutane is a strange, bizarre tale of calamity and woe for acne patients all over the world.
Roche Pharmaceuticals, the makers and distributors of Accutane, have long insisted that the powerful acne medication is a natural derivative of a vitamin A compound that is naturally occurring in the human blood system. The actual chemical name for Accutane is isotretinoin, and it is an incredibly potent acne treatment that is intended to treat the worst of the worst acne cases, for patients who have tried everything else, and for whom nothing else has worked.
Though to be fair, some doctors did describe Accutane as an acne drug “of last resort,” none of them ever foresaw the harsh and debilitating side effects that occurred to a large cross section of the patients taking Accutane. The side effects that were listed in the advisory literature were bad enough, but the worst side effects were never even mentioned, which has led to a glut of lawsuits targeting the makers of Accutane for compensatory and punitive damages from Accutane patients.
As an acne medication, Accutane delivered on what it promised, as more than half of the patients who used it experienced the rapid diminishment of their acne. For a smaller set, Accutane was much less effective, but they still saw some clearing of the acne condition. For a very small portion of Accutane patients – one in every 500 – the severity of the acne actually worsened considerably. In addition, of course, none of this even touches upon the rapid onset of the serious and debilitating Accutane side effects.
Accutane was first released and prescribed by doctors in the year 2000, and it was marketed as an effective acne treatment. Accutane was used by more than two million people for the treatment of acne, from all over the world. A statistically significant portion of the total number of Accutane patients has become afflicted with the worst forms of Accutane side effects. These side effects include all manner of chronic bowel problems, including irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Crohn's disease and the potentially fatal ulcerative colitis.
In some cases, as well, Accutane has been connected with the onset of severe depression and suicidal thoughts in adolescent patients taking the acne drug. The onset of this depression and the suicidal thoughts is almost immediate, as teens who reported the onset did so within hours of beginning use of Accutane.
The only that Accutane can be an effective treatment for severe acne is for the patient to take an extremely large doses of the drug. Unfortunately, it seems that it is this very large dose that leads to the onset of these dangerous side effects. The reason seems to be that large doses of Accutane cause the body’s oil glands to cease production, which leads to an array of autoimmune problems.
Author Resource:
Jim Grayson is the author of this article on Accutane Ulcerative Colitis .
Find more information about Accutane Lawsuit 2010 here.
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