Lexington, KYIn the early 90s, Lynn S. turned to Fen-Phen to lose weight. Now she is turning to a lawsuit against the diet drug that caused her mitral valve regurgitation, heart problems and potentially PAH—formerly known as primary pulmonary hypertension, or PPH.
Lynn had a weight problem all her life. When the "miracle" diet drugs came on the market, her doctor prescribed the Fen-Phen cocktail and she took it faithfully, every day for about one year. She lost 60 lbs but gained it back over the years and resorted to gastric bypass surgery. Sounds like a drastic measure, but Lynn believes it is safer than Fen-Phen.
"I would much rather go through surgery than to take Fen-Phen again," she says. "The way it made me feel wasn't worth losing those 60 lbs.
"I was diagnosed with mitral valve regurgitation a few years after taking Fen-Phen and ever since then, I've had heart problems. The last echocardiogram pointed to more valve leakage but not enough to warrant medication. However it has to be monitored and my doctor told me that I will need echocardiograms every other year.
Sometimes my heart feels like a fish flopping around in my throat – I get the flutters. And the subsequent anxiety that went along with knowing the danger of Fen-Phen made it even worse. But I was determined to lose weight.
I knew about the diet drug lawsuit years ago and even though I was diagnosed with mitral valve regurgitation by my family physician, I didn't relate it to Fen-Phen; nobody ever told me it was a direct side effect of these diet drugs. I thought the lawsuit was a hoax. People were talking about lawsuits but I thought it was just one way of people scamming to get money. I didn't know that my illness had anything to do with Fen-Phen--even though I was told about the danger of diet drugs by my prescribing doctor and his nurse, I was desperate to lose weight and shrugged it off.
It wasn't until a few weeks ago when I went online and read about other people suffering from PPH, a disease that could start with leaky valves—that is what I have and will I get PPH? I thought, why just sit here, not doing anything about my illness; why should the manufacturers get away with making people sick?
Although my doctor told me that mitral valve problems could be hereditary, the timing was too coincidental—it developed right after I stopped taking Fen-Phen. I have always been healthy, apart from my weight problem. I definitely didn't have any heart issues and there is no heart disease in my family.
I don't know what I can gain if I join a lawsuit now. I just feel that the drug companies shouldn't get away with it. My doctor explained to me that everyone in the medical field was up in the air about these two drugs being combined (there were some issues) but he also explained how they work. I assumed, with him being a doctor, that everything was OK. I'm not educated in that field so I trusted my doctor.
His patients came as far away as West Virginia and I met many of them while we waited in his office. We would talk about taking Fen-Phen. We were all excited about it and all of us were fat. We checked in with his office monthly and got weighed. If we hadn't lost weight, we got a lecture from the doctor and then if we went back the next month and still hadn't lost any weight, we couldn't get any more Fen-Phen. We also paid him cash: $65 each month. We couldn't use credit cards or checks, cash only. Nobody questioned this: as I said, we were overweight and desperate.
Within the year that I went, I lost weight every month. But the doctor didn't see me: his nurse had my chart and brought out the pills in baggies if I shed even a pound.
If we lost weight, the nurse weighed us, checked our blood pressure, asked if we had any problems and gave us our pills.
I remember telling her that my heart fluttered and raced. I would stand still then my heart would feel like it stopped for a second then it would start pounding. 'That is to be expected, don't worry, it is just part of the drug therapy,' the nurse said.
In hindsight, I wish that I had looked into things further, but at that time, nobody really knew anything. I heard about clinical trials, and now I wonder if I was used as a guinea pig. Then my doctor just left the country and we quit taking Fen-Phen. We called him the 'fat doctor'. If he didn't leave, I would have continued taking it and I might have wound up dead.
My heart problems are under control but I still have mitral valve regurgitation: I sure hope it doesn't lead to PPH. If this has happened to me because of Fen-Phen, I feel that I am owed something. My husband and I are simple people and we aren't trying to get rich, I just feel that I should get what is due, at least to cover medical expenses."
The initial symptoms of PAH or PPH can 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, ankle and lower leg swelling, increased chest pain, and even death.
The American Heart Association (AMA) reported that the manufacturers of diet drugs, namely American Home Products, Wyeth, Interneuron Pharmaceuticals, and others, did not fully test the drugs before marketing and the doctors prescribed the diet drugs with awareness of the dangerous side effects. Lynn S. can vouch for that.