Alternatives to Vioxx

So Vioxx is off the market, and now they will tell you to try one of the other drugs. But wait… I’ve already found something telling us that there are alternatives, so since I actually have experience with the first step alternative before going to a Cox-2 inhibitor non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), like Celebrex or Vioxx, I thought I would share that with you.

The site linked above is telling you to use Mobic, also known as Meloxicam. In July of last year, I was over training; probably about 10 hours per week. I was thin, fit, and I looked great, but I was beating up my body and I started to have sports injuries. (I was probably about 5 lbs off of looking like Linda Hamilton in T2.) It started with what they thought was a small tear in my Achilles and went to my arches ‘falling’. Long story short, I went to the podiatrist after a few months and after telling him firmly NO, I would not do cortisone shots (there was big argument there, but I would not back down), I did some ice treatments in combination with Mobic. Now I argued with him vehemently against the Mobic too, but I was assured it was fine, he had a lot of elderly patients on Mobic, he pressed a fistful of free samples into my hand and told me to take it. I acquiesced, perhaps since I had won the battle of the cortisone. Who knows.

I went home and did research, but nothing alarmed me. Nothing told me I could get in big trouble, so I took the doses he had me on, did everything he said, and the pain diminished.

A month later the pain started. This was now probably November. Pain in my chest. It radiated down the left arm and sometimes the right. It was horrible. It was a vice. It would radiate from my back. Suffocating. I was a 38 year old woman, I had just had a full physical. I was 5’2”, 118 lbs of muscle, 55 resting heart rate and BP of 90/60. I ignored it. Until one morning, in mid December, at 4AM, I awoke with the most horrible chest pain I have ever experienced and I thought, "Oh crap, I'm having a heart attack." For some reason I didn’t panic, I slowly rolled over and took my pulse. It was 55. I realized I wasn’t sweating and then knew whatever it was, it was not my heart. My internist saw me by 9AM. If I had been 10 years older, I would have gone directly to the ER, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

We did what we call in the engine world, fault isolation. We just kept going down these ‘fault trees’ trying to isolate the problem. It came down to Mobic. It had irriated my stomach and I was a mess. So through the Christmas holidays, I was on Nexium (like I really wanted to take another drug) and was on a strict bland diet of no chocolate, caffeine, alcohol, citrus, mint or spicy foods. I live in the Citrus capital, am addicted to chocolate, drink alcohol only at Christmas and only in the form of an Irish coffee that has caffeine. My own personal Christmas hell.

Since then I have met a woman who was in the hospital with horrible GI bleeding due to Mobic. She had no previous GI problems, as I hadn’t either. My best friend's Mom has had all sorts of problems and I firmly believe it was the Mobic. My internist talked to me like this happens all the time. Literally. She said she sees this All.The.Time. with Mobic. As a matter of fact, as soon as I said,"Oh wait, I was on Mobic a month or two ago" she stopped right there and said, "I do believe we have found your problem."

I am hesitant to take ANYTHING other than Advil as I'm not comfortable with the clinical trials on these drugs and I get the distinct impression that in the past, most clinical trials were done on men (other than things like.... the pill). Hello? Last I looked I had breasts and was missing a vital part in being a man. We are different. And I am small. Drugs effect me differently than on a 200 lb man.

And when the research is being done, such as the findings at the Cleveland Clinic, the drug companies are ignoring it. They are ignoring it because they are arrogant and self righteous. They value their money over our lives. We are nothing to them. We are nameless faceless statistics that buy what we see of the TV or take what our doctors thrust in our hands... the vast majority of whom were educated about these drugs by the drug companies themselves via their drug reps.

Hey, maybe I am wrong, but that's my opinion and trust me, I'm not letting anyone convince me of taking anything again unless it's a life threatening situation or they can show me it's been on the market for a good long time.