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Re: Serzone lottery

Posted by Rick on January 18, 2002, at 1:28:33

In reply to Serzone lottery » Serzone Guy, posted by TSA West on January 17, 2002, at 23:49:12

>I think you have a better chance of winning the lottery than the chance of liver problems with Serzone; thus you have little to worry about. :)

Talking about Serzone and the liver, I feel compelled do the due diligence of pointing out that Serzone IS a powerful inhibitor of liver enzyme CYP3A4, which many other drugs depend on for metabolization. So Serzone can increase blood levels of other drugs, sometimes greatly, and thus any Serzone user should check carefully for potential interactions. Doctors *should* be aware of these, such as the potentially-dangerous interactions with some of the cholesterol-lowering statins, but often they're not. And the "drug interaction checkers" in books and on the net are not comprehensive. So with Serzone in combos, careful monitoring is advisable (e.g. for potentiated benzo effects...or for muscle weakness in combo with statins, which can signal the onset of dangerous statin-induced muscle atrophy), and annual liver function blood tests are advisable. The fix for interactions can involve either lowering the dosage of the "other" drug or switching to non-interacting meds. Sometimes the interactions can prove useful and beneficial, as they have for me.

All that said, I feel Serzone is generally a pretty safe drug relative to others. Interactions are a different story from the 1-in-200,000 liver-failure "lottery" for Serzone taken by itself.


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