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What is Nuedexta and Its Side Effects?
Drugs in all kinds can have side effects. Side effects are the effects of these medications which are not part of what is it intended for. For example, if your drug is supposed to heal a fever but also makes you sleepy, then making you sleepy is a side effect of that drug.
Any effect of a certain medicine gives that is not the primary intention or is secondary, then that is a side effect. These can be both therapeutic or adverse which means that side effects can be either good or bad.
No medicine is perfect and secondary effects are expected always. Some can be good and some can be bad while some can also be negligible. Because of these secondary consequences, some medications are specifically used for these secondary results.
Another aspect of this is that all human beings are different and even if a certain medicine was made to have no secondary consequences, it could still be possible to have different results with different people. Click here to learn more about the secondary consequences of medication.
If different kinds of drugs have different side effects, then it becomes very important to be informed of such things as they can apparently be bad for you also.
Especially if the secondary consequences are adverse, then you should be careful of what you are taking. For example, chemotherapy kills cancer cells, but it also weakens your body to the point where it destroys good cells also.
Even your ibuprofen which is primarily taken for pain and fever can cause your blood to thin. Depending on the condition of your body, this reaction can be bad or good for you.
Nuedexta is a new drug that is manufactured by the pharmaceutical company Avanir Pharmaceuticals Inc. which is based in Aliso Viejo, California. The company’s focus is biopharmaceuticals that provide treatment for problems and sicknesses related to the central nervous system.
Nuedexta is a drug that can help treat PBA or Pseudobulbar Affect which can cause patients to laugh or cry uncontrollably even when they don’t want to.
It can last for minutes at a time and can be incongruent to their true emotions which can be very disturbing to the patient and the people around the patient. This condition is caused by an injury in the brain or a serious mental disorder.
PBA affects a lot of people in the United States. It affects people with brain conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS), Multiple Sclerosis, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and Parkinson’s disease.
This can even be found in some who are having autism. Because of the wide range of who can be affected by this disease, around two million people are thought to have this in the United States alone. Click this link to know more about PBA: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/pseudobulbar-affect/symptoms-causes/syc-20353737.
Nuedexta is actually a combination of two drugs: Dextromethorphan and Quinidine. Dextromethorphan is a Sigma 1 receptor antagonist and an NMDA receptor antagonist.
Quinidine, on the other hand, is an antiarrhythmic agent which means that it is used to suppress any abnormal rhythms of the beat of the heart. Combining these two drugs can help treat PBA by suppressing the urges of its symptoms.
This suppresses the urge to involuntarily cry or laugh.
Based on the Experiments, research, and clinical trials done by Avanir Pharmaceutical Inc., this medicine is expected to treat PBA after 90 days of use. More than half of the patients in the trials became free of any episodes caused by PBA after 12 weeks of use of this drug. All patients also had a reduction of at least 82% in the episodes that they suffered.
This medicine is however not cheap and can cost you around 1200 dollars for 60 capsules. If you are suffering from PBA, then your doctor will most likely recommend that you take these medicine once a day for the first seven days and twice daily after the seven-day period.
The reason for having you take it once a day on the first seven days is to introduce it to your body first and see if there are any adverse reactions to the drug before increasing the dose.
Side Effects
There may be side effects of Nuedexta but these can be very manageable also. Some of the common secondary consequences of this drug are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, cough, and swelling of the feet and joints.
These are quite common and very manageable. Just make sure that you drink enough water and rest while you are still getting used to this medicine in your system. Once you get used to it, these symptoms will be gone.
There are also more serious side effects that can be related to the taking of this medicine. There is a possibility that you will be twitching, restlessness, shivering, high blood pressure, and confusion. If this happens to you after taking this medication, then you must contact your physician right away to get yourself checked. These are serious adverse effects and must be attended to immediately.
This drug should also not be taken together with Monoamine Oxidase inhibitors or Quinidine, and Quinidine related medication.
These types of medication are all related to the control and suppression of irregular beats of the heart and taking more than the right those can cause severe consequences to the body and the heart. Taking too much of this type of medicine can cause complications to your heart which will lead to more heart problems.
Always consult your doctor before taking Nuedexta if you have any heart condition.
Side effects can be good or bad and most of them that are adverse are manageable. It is still best to be informed on what the possibilities are and what you should be looking out for. Some can cause allergic reactions and some can simply be bad for you. That is why you should also not skip the testing phase before taking the higher doses.
Take your time and let the medicine do its work on its own phase. Make sure to follow the instructions of the doctor and take the right amount at the right time always. As the saying goes, the dose makes the poison.
