This is pretty serious. The FDA just announced that there is a big problem If you take the anti-clotting drug Plavix in addition to the stomach acid reducer Prilosec. It turns out that Prilosec cuts the effectiveness of Plavix by half. For people with blood clotting problems, that’s really bad.
The official announcement says… “patients at risk for heart attacks or strokes who use Plavix to prevent platelet aggregation will not get the full effect of this medicine if they are also taking Prilosec.”
The science behind it is pretty straightforward. “Plavix does not have anti-clotting effects until it is converted or metabolized into its active form with the help of the liver enzyme, CYP2C19. Prilosec blocks this enzyme, thereby reducing the effectiveness of Plavix.”
But it’s not just Prilosec that causes problems with Plavix. Others on the hit list are… “Nexium (esomeprazole), Tagamet and Tagamet HB (cimetidine), Diflucan (fluconazole), Nizoral (ketoconazole), VFEND (voriconazole), Intelence (etravirine), Felbatol (felbamate), Prozac, Serafem, Symbyax (fluoxetine), Luvox (fluvoxamine) and Ticlid (ticlopidine).”
The good news is that … “Zantac (ranitidine), Pepcid (famotidine), Axid (nizatidine), and antacids [that] do not inhibit the CYP2C19 enzyme aren’t expected to interfere with the anti-clotting activity of Plavix.”
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