A Connecticut resident has filed a lawsuit against the makers of the anticoagulant Xarelto claiming he suffered from uncontrollable bleeding problems.

Plaintiff John F., a resident of Monroe, Connecticut, says he began taking the anticoagulant Xarelto in February 2015.  John began taking Xarelto in order to treat his atrial fibrilation. Atrial fibrilation is a condition in which blood pools in a chamber of the heart.

The patient who suffers from atrial fibrilation may benefit from taking the anticoagulant Xarelto because it reduces the risk of clotting.

Xarelto is a newer generation anticoagulant that works to keep the blood from forming blood clots. It is often given to patients who have undergone lower body surgery, such as a hip replacement or knee replacement, in order to keep the body from forming blood clots deep in the legs. These clots, if formed, can travel to the heart, lungs or brain where they can be deadly.

Xarelto Side Effects

After John began taking the anticoagulant Xarelto in 2015, he alleges he began experiencing potentially deadly complications from the drug. On May 19, 2016, John says he was taken to the hospital because of life-threatening pelvic hematoma and internal bleeding.

He was admitted to the hospital where he underwent treatment for his pelvic hematoma and internal bleeding for 10 days.

This lawsuit claims that as a result of the anticoagulant Xarelto, he suffered these life-threatening complications. John says that he suffered “significant injuries, such as those described above, as well as enduring exhaustion, distress, pain and mental anguish.”

He believes that the drug manufacturer was negligent, that they “failed to disclose that Xarelto is an unreasonably unsafe medicine,” that they “failed to provide adequate warnings about the safe use of Xarelto,” that they “failed to market safe doses of Xarelto,” and that “there was no reversal agent for Xarelto.”

He also claims that he would have never agreed to take the drug had he realized that the anticoagulant Xarelto was associated with uncontrollable bleeding incidents.

New Generation Anticoagulants

Unlike previous anticoagulants, Xarelto and similar newer generation anticoagulants did not have a reversal agent when they were approved for use by the FDA. The standard drug that has been prescribed for patients who need a blood thinner for decades is warfarin.

Warfarin is a drug that does many of the same things as Xarelto, however, it requires more frequent monitoring as well as diet changes. When the anticoagulant Xarelto was approved, drug makers promoted it as safe and as a step-up from warfarin because of the standard dosing and no need for diet changes.

As can be common with anticoagulants, when the body has need of actually clotting, it has trouble if a patient is taking a blood thinner. Those patients who are on warfarin and need the blood to clot (for example, in the case of trauma), could be administered an antidote. The antidote for warfarin is Vitamin K.

However, Xarelto does not have an antidote. When those who are on Xarelto have had a need for their blood to clot, often people have had uncontrollable bleeding events. Some patients have even died from these bleeding events allegedly caused by anticoagulant Xarelto.

Many patients say they were not aware that excessive and possibly deadly bleeding could occur with Xarelto.

Like John, many have filed lawsuits. In this lawsuit, John is bring forth counts of failure to warn, design defect, negligence, negligent misrepresentation, breach of implied warranty and violation of consumer protection laws.