An Arkansas woman has filed a Xarelto GI bleed lawsuit against Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Bayer Healthcare AG following injuries allegedly sustained after use of the popular new-generation blood thinner.

Plaintiff Cathleen M. was prescribed the blood thinning medication Xarelto in January 2015 for the treatment of a pulmonary embolism.

A few days after ingesting Xarelto, Cathleen was admitted to the hospital where she was diagnosed with an upper GI bleed, hemorrhagic shock and anemia.

Cathleen remained in the hospital for two days while doctors treated her injuries, according to the Xarelto GI bleed lawsuit.

She claims that the drug makers were aware of Xarelto bleeding side effects but failed to warn the medical community and Xarelto users of this risk.

Cathleen claims that as a result of the drug makers’ actions, she suffered personal injuries that are permanent in nature, physical pain and mental anguish, including the need for lifelong medical treatment, monitoring, and medication.

She is filing this Xarelto GI bleed lawsuit on multiple counts including negligence, strict products liability, breach of express warranty, and fraudulent misrepresentation.

About Xarelto

Xarelto (rivaroxaban) was first approved by the FDA in July of 2011 as a prescription medicine with three primary uses: to reduce the risk of blood clots and stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation, to treat deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, and to reduce the risk of blood clots in patients undergoing knee or hip replacement surgery.

Xarelto belongs to a class of anticoagulants called direct factor Xa inhibitors. Sometimes referred to as blood thinners, anticoagulants interfere with the normal clotting of the blood.

Clotting is essential if a person is to stop bleeding from an open wound, but some people experience clotting when they are not injured. Atrial fibrillation is a heart condition characterized by an irregular heartbeat that can cause blood to pool in the heart and may lead to clots.

If these clots travel to the brain, they may cause a stroke. Blood clots that develop in the legs (deep vein thrombosis) and pulmonary embolism (blood clots in the lungs) can cause serious complications and/or death if left untreated.

Signs of a GI Bleed

When taking an anticoagulant drug like Xarelto, gastrointestinal bleeds or GI bleeds can occur both in the upper and lower GI tract, posing a serious risk to the patient. If left untreated, the GI bleed may continue unabated, ultimately reaching a critical point when blood loss becomes severe.

Regarded as a relatively common complication of Xarelto, gastrointestinal bleeding can result in hospitalization and in some cases, death.

Signs of gastrointestinal bleeding associated with Xarelto can take a number of different forms, including:

• abdominal pain
• a hard abdomen
• vomiting blood
• bloody stool
• black, tar-like stool
• very pale complexion
• extreme tiredness
• fainting

Xarelto users experiencing the above signs of gastrointestinal bleeding should seek medical treatment immediately.

Filing a Xarelto GI Bleed Lawsuit

If you or a loved one has experienced serious gastrointestinal bleeding or other Xarelto bleeding side effects, it is critical to understand your legal rights in order to recover for any and all damages suffered.

An experienced Xarelto attorney can carefully evaluate the facts of your particular situation and effectively pursue appropriate legal action to compensate you for your losses.

The Xarelto GI Bleed Lawsuit is filed within In Re: Xarelto (Rivaroxaban) Products Liabilty Litigation, MDL No. 2592, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.