Headache, Dizziness and Co Contact a prescriber for side effects

For side effects always contact the prescribing physician
Medicines can cause a number of unwanted side effects. Especially side effects of analgesics are often described. The complaints are not always on the leaflet. In such cases, the prescribing physician should be informed.

Not every side effect is on the leaflet
Headache, nausea, dizziness, itchy rash: glands and side effects are among the major risks of drug therapy. But even if the list of possible side effects on the leaflets is long, not all potential symptoms are far from being found. So what should patients do when they take a remedy that has effects that are not described? The answer is given by an expert in a message from the dpa news agency.

Occurring side effects when taking medicines should be clarified immediately with the prescribing physician. (Image: Ingo Bartussek / fotolia.com)

Contact the prescribing doctor
"You should contact the doctor who prescribed it. If it's an over-the-counter remedy, contact your family doctor, "recommends Corinna Schaefer, who heads the Patient Information Department at the Medical Quality Center for Medical Quality. The respective physician will then report the adverse reaction or suspected case, for example to the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM). If this does not happen, patients can do it online themselves. The BfArM and the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI) offer a reporting form in an online database.

Recognize risks early
When this possibility was launched in 2012, it was already possible to draw on experience in other countries where the patient reporting process had already been in operation for some time. These experiences have shown that direct reporting by patients of possible drug side effects helps to detect risks more early. In some cases, however, it is not so easy to spot a side effect as such - even if it is listed on the leaflet. "Anyone who observes unusual reactions in a short time interval after starting the intake should consider side effects as the cause of the complaints," said Schaefer. (Ad)