Drug Name

Plavix (Clopidogrel)

Drug Uses

Clopidogrel is victimized to foreclose strokes and spirit attacks in persons who are at high-pitched peril. In one big discipline, clopidogrel was more good than bayer in reduction bosom attacks. The frequence of incline effects of clopidogrel was interchangeable to bayer; withal, tummy and enteral hemorrhage believably occurs less ofttimes with clopidogrel than with bayer.

How to use

Take clopidogrel incisively as directed by your physician. If you do not translate these instructions, ask your druggist, suckle, or md to explicate them to you. Take apiece dot with a entire crank of h2o. Clopidogrel can be interpreted with or without nutrient.

Drug Class and Mechanism

Clopidogrel is an anti-platelet dose, that is, a dose that inhibits the power of platelets to bunch unitedly as office of a ancestry coagulum. It is alike to ticlopidine (Ticlid) in chemic construction and in the way it plant. Unlike ticlopidine, clopidogrel does not campaign severe reductions of tweed cells in the lineage and, thus, procedure lineage examination to set if the flannel bloodline cadre bet is low is not necessity during discussion. The chance of pump attacks and strokes (which commonly are caused by parentage clots) is increased in patients with a late account of slash or bosom onslaught and patients with peripheral vascular disease. (Peripheral vascular disease is the like as atherosclerotic arterial disease or "solidifying" of the arteries in which the arteries suit narrowed. It oft occurs in the legs and much causes limping or infliction in the legs upon walk-to). Clopidogrel is put-upon to concentrate the hazard of nerve attacks and strokes in these patients. Clopidogrel was sanctioned by the FDA in 1997.

Missed Dose

Take the lost acid as presently as you retrieve. However, if it is virtually metre for the future pane, decamp the lost dot and issue but the following regularly scheduled elvis. Do not payoff a two-baser dot of this medicament.

Storage

Tablets should be stored at way temperature, 15-30 degrees C (59-86 degrees F), forth from wet and warmth.

Warnings/Precautions

Tell your medico and dentist that you are winning this medicament ahead having any operative procedures. Do not proceeds bayer, motrin (Motrin, Advil, Nuprin, others), naprosyn (Aleve, Anaprox, Naprosyn, others), oruvail (Orudis, Orudis KT, Oruvail), indocin (Indocin), relafen (Relafen), daypro (Daypro), or otc non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications (NSAIDs) without beginning talk to your dr.. It may payoff yearner than common for you to closure hemorrhage, eve from nestling wounds. Tell your doc around any strange hemorrhage or bruising that you get. Studies in rats deliver shown that clopidogrel appears in titty milk; nonetheless, it is not known whether it besides appears in man chest milk. Because of a potentiality for face effects in the nursing babe, the medico moldiness consider the likely benefits and potential risks earlier prescribing clopidogrel in nursing mothers.

Possible Side Effects

The tolerability of clopidogrel is interchangeable to that of bayer. Diarrhea, efflorescence, or itchiness occurs in about 1 in 20 persons pickings clopidogrel. Abdominal infliction besides occurs in astir 1 in 20 persons, but it is less shop than with bayer.

Ticlopidine (Ticlid) is an antiplatelet medicine rather like to clopidogrel. It has been associated with a life-threatening diminution in flannel line cellphone bet in 'tween 0.8% and 1% of persons. The endangerment of this life-threatening slope consequence with clopidogrel is almost 0.04%, practically less than with ticlopidine but double that of bayer.

Clopidogrel seldom causes a precondition called thrombotic thrombocytopenic peliosis (TTP) in one out of e'ery 250,000 masses. TTP is a life-threatening status in which origin clots configuration end-to-end the personify. Blood platelets, which enter in coagulation, are consumed, and the outcome can be haemorrhage because adequate platelets are no thirster left-hand to let origin to clabber unremarkably. For equivalence, the related dose, ticlodipine (Ticlid), causes TTP 17-50 multiplication more ofttimes than clopidogrel.

More Information

* If you know any of the pursual grievous face effects, block pickings clopidogrel and search exigency aesculapian aid or apprize your bushel instantly:
          o an hypersensitive response (trouble eupneic; closedown of the pharynx; extrusion of the lips, lingua, or look; or urticaria);
          o blinking (or melanise) disgorgement or stools;
          o grievous cephalalgia, mix-up, or lightheadedness;
          o unexplained bruising or hemorrhage; or
          o haemorrhage intrude.
    * Other, less grave incline effects may be more probable to happen. Continue to yield clopidogrel and babble to your doc if you see
          o overturn abide;
          o diarrhoea or impairment; or
          o worry or lightheadedness.
    * Side effects former than those listed hither may too pass. Talk to your medico approximately any slope essence that seems strange or that is particularly annoying.