Plenty of reports from patients who allegedly have been injured by the popular medication Pradaxa report anticoagulant therapy side effects that they say they were never told about in advance.

Any patient taking Pradaxa knows that there will be risk of side effects, but the discovery of severe anticoagulant therapy side effects can be overwhelming for a patient who was never told about this risk in advance.

In 2010, the FDA approved the anticoagulant, Pradaxa. However, numerous patients indicated early on that there were life threatening and serious injuries, including anticoagulant therapy side effects like internal bleeding.

Anticoagulant therapy side effects might present immediately or after using Pradaxa for some time. Some of the most common severe anticoagulant side effects include brain hemorrhage, kidney bleeding, heart attack, stroke, death, and gastrointestinal bleeding.

Pradaxa problems, if not captured immediately, could cause life-threatening complications for a patient. A defective drug lawsuit like those filed by patients already harmed aims to hold the drug maker responsible for failure to warn and other related damages.

Bringing New Drugs to Market

When a new medication comes on the market, it is often marketed heavily by pharmaceutical companies, as they have spent years and a lot of research funds to develop the drug. Some legal claims against manufacturers allege that this aggressive marketing fails to give an accurate picture of the drug’s risk profile due to a firm’s alleged focus on profits rather than patient safety.

Pradaxa, a relatively new anticoagulant drug, is manufactured by Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals. The drug was marketed as being superior to the prescription medication warfarin.

Warfarin was used for many years but Pradaxa allegedly required very little change of diet and less monitoring of patient. However, those patients who were using warfarin who experienced internal bleeding were able to flush their body with vitamin K and counteract those side effects. People who were taking Pradaxa, however, did not have access to a reversal agent.

More than 307 reports of serious side effects were lodged with the FDA in the first three months that Pradaxa was on the market. Furthermore, more than 260 deaths were allegedly linked to Pradaxa’s internal bleeding, hemorrhage, stroke and gastrointestinal bleeding risks. As a result, many of these patients have chosen to file Pradaxa lawsuits.

Pradaxa Bleeding Risk

The primary basis of these Pradaxa anticoagulant therapy side effects lawsuits are that once an internal bleed or hemorrhage begins, there is no way to stop it except for transfusions or until dialysis is used to flush the body of Pradaxa.

In 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an official warning to notify those patients using Pradaxa about the severe risk of uncontrollable internal bleeding which could be connected to Pradaxa. Pradaxa class action lawsuits and dozens of individual Pradaxa lawsuits have already been filed by those patients who claim that they were seriously harmed and were never told about the possible dangers of using Pradaxa.

If you or someone you know has been injured or suffered side effects after using Pradaxa, a consult with a knowledgeable defective drug lawyer can help you understand your options.