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News Articles >> Avandia Blamed for Death of otherwise He..
Avandia Blamed for Death of otherwise Healthy Diabetic
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| January 27, 2008. By Corey Van't Haaff |  RSS  Del.icio.us  Seed Newsvine  Facebook |
Cold Lake, AB: Theresa is certain that Avandia caused her father's death and was the wrong drug to be prescribed. She said liver specialists confirmed to her that Avandia should never have been give to her now-deceased father.
"The damage was done," she said of the fatal effects of Avandia. "He got NASH, advanced liver failure. It's like cirrhosis, just like with alcohol, but he got it from a chemical—from Avandia."
Her dad was a height-weight proportionate strong man when he was diagnosed with Type II diabetes at the age of 48. She said he was surprised at the diagnosis since he wasn't overweight, didn't drink and stayed away from sugar.
"Right after the doctor put him on Avandia, immediately he was fatigued all the time. His hands would shake; he lost weight, lost muscle tone. He had mental loss. He had swelling, all in the first year of Avandia," she said.
Despite repeated trips to his family physician, he was told these were all normal symptoms of diabetes. She said that her family now knows how incredibly wrong that advice was.
"So the doctor upped the dose of Avandia. My father had to semi-retire and tried taking up long-haul trucking with my mom."
An accident in 2000 ended that business. Her dad was too fatigued to even climb into the truck.
"My father was a strong man. He didn't complain a lot. If the doctor said something, it was gospel," she said.
Her dad then stayed at home, often becoming despondent at his loss of abilities. He was sad that he couldn't cook dinner for his wife or do anything around the house.
At Easter in 2005, he started swelling so much; he couldn't even put his pants on. The doctor told him just to take a hot bath. The doctor also doubled his Avandia dose.
By Christmas, he was admitted to the hospital in critical condition and doctors discovered the swelling was caused by internal bleeding. Theresa said he was full of blood everywhere. His esophagus was bleeding into his belly and he had advanced liver failure.
He was referred to a liver specialist who said the damage was caused by Avandia and to get off now. He asked why her father had even been put on Avandia?
Her dad was sent for a liver transplant and Theresa was prepared to give him a part of hers, but he was deemed not a candidate for a transplant when doctors discovered a cardiac problem that hadn't been apparent prior to his taking Avandia.
"At that point he was handed his death certificate," she said. "He talked and joked toward the end but he knew he was going to die soon. Mom was absolutely devastated."
Theresa's family watched him grow progressively weaker until he couldn't even bathe himself. One day he fell but this time, her mom couldn't get him back up.
He went into palliative care at a hospital in Calgary where he ultimately died on September 2, 2007 from liver failure.
"The way this was all described to me, I feel like my father was murdered," she said. "The drug company knew there was a calculated risk and Dad fell into that calculated risk. They knew the drug was going to be for some but not work for others but they made a ton of money."
"The way I feel, they made billions off of calculated risks. That's exactly the way the doctors described it."
For one family in Alberta, Avandia took the patriarch away. It's not an isolated story. Too many people have died taking a drug that was supposed to help them. Families need to work with other families to stop these senseless deaths. It's time to do something about it now.
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