And yet upwards of ten years after you may have been prescribed a then-legitimate and approved drug such as Pondimin, Redux or Fen-phen, (since taken off the market), you could be diagnosed with life-threatening PPH.
Ten years after stopping the very thing that is causing it.
It would be easy to assume that anything relative to high blood pressure has to originate with the heart - but in this case we're talking about a condition which is actually a lung disorder involving the pulmonary artery. It feeds blood into the lung in order to load up on oxygen before being pumped by the heart to the rest of the body. PPH occurs when pressure in the pulmonary artery increases dramatically for no apparent reason.If left unchecked, the condition is usually fatal.
According to Health Canada, 1 to 2 cases per one million adults appear each year in the general population. However, that rate jumps 23 fold when you factor in consumers who are taking, or have taken appetite suppressants and diet drugs.
Three of those drugs were pulled from the market by their respective manufacturers, with the blessing of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1997: Fen-phen, (phentermine and fenfluramine), Redux (dexfenfluramine), and Pondimin (fenfluramine). While a definitive case for PPH has yet to be found, there is a definite link between PPH and the presence of diet drugs and appetite suppressants.
A link strong enough to warrant a huge award on behalf of a deceased woman from Texas who had taken the Phen/Fen combo to combat a weight problem, and who later died from PPH. Both sides settled, but not before Wyeth was put on the hook for over a billion dollars in this one case alone.
And there may be more, given various timelines, which appear more than mere coincidence.
Phentermine had been approved for use since 1959 and fenfluramine (such as Pondimin) since 1972. Incidence of PPH emerged in the early 1970's, but things started heating up when physicians began prescribing phentermine and fenfluramine together for the treatment of obesity. The FDA approved both appetitie-suppresants as individual therapy for short-term use, but never in combination, and the so-called Fen-phen combo was never sanctioned in the United States.
The appetite-suppressants since pulled from the market present other risk factors, including valvular disease of the heart and brain toxicity. However, PPH is a tough one, in that it may take ten years following exposure to a suspected drug to appear, to achieve a conclusive diagnosis of PPH.
It's now been a decade since Redux, Pondimin and the Fen-phen regimen have been off the market.
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Symptoms of PPH may include weakness, fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pain, dizzy spells and fainting.
Advanced symptoms of PPH, due to delayed diagnosis, can include bluish lips and skin, swelling of the ankle and lower leg, and increased chest pain. If you have any of these symptoms, consult a physician and disclose any prior use of appetite-suppressing drugs.
In the U.S. there are 500 to 1000 new cases of PPH diagnosed every year.
It is estimated that six, to seven million consumers were prescribed appetite suppressants individually, or in combination, worldwide.
The ticking time bomb may be about to make its presence felt.