A growing number of patients are coming forward to report their concerns about lack of warning of the Pradaxa hemorrhaging risk. These patients say that they were never told by the manufacturer of the medication that they could suffer from dangerous bleeding after taking Pradaxa.

While all drugs carry some level of risk and side effects, users of Pradaxa say that the maker of the drug did not go far enough in publicizing these issues so that doctors and patients could properly evaluate the benefits versus the downsides.

Pradaxa, also known as dabigatran, was initially approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2010. However, shortly after the medication came on the market, a number of different side effects began to present in patients, including a Pradaxa hemorrhaging risk.

Some of the other side effects linked to the use of this medication include brain hemorrhage, internal or kidney bleeding, gastrointestinal bleeding, heart attack and stroke.

Pradaxa is in a class of medications known as direct thrombin inhibitors. These might also be referred to as anticoagulants or blood thinners. Users of this medication were often given a prescription for Pradaxa from their physician because the medication allegedly required less monitoring of the patient or no change in diet.

However, a Pradaxa hemorrhaging risk could mean that those individuals who began taking this medication as prescribed by their physician could experience internal bleeding.

After the medication was on the market for just three months, more than 300 reports were received by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration about patient concerns over the Pradaxa hemorrhaging risk, including those patients who’d experienced gastrointestinal bleeding, internal bleeding and other health problems.

During that first year, more than 260 deaths were directly related to problems such as hemorrhaging, stroke and gastrointestinal bleeding. Many of these patients have had to get immediate medical attention, and some have chosen to file lawsuits alleging failure to warn about the Pradaxa hemorrhaging risk.

Plenty of these patients say that before the introduction of an antidote in 2015, there was no way to stop the bleed until a patient’s body has been flushed via dialysis.

This could require numerous blood transfusions for the patient and can take hours. In many of the worst-case scenarios, this Pradaxa hemorrhaging risk has led to death. A warning from the Food and Drug Administration about the uncontrollable internal bleeding risk was first shared in December 2011.

While it is known that all anticoagulant and blood thinning drugs may cause bleeding, many of the users of Pradaxa say that this excessive risk of bleeding is a very dangerous side effect and one about which they were never appropriately warned and that this poses a danger for all potential users.

Some of the patients who have already lived through a Pradaxa hemorrhage and risk developing severe and uncontrollable bleeding have chosen to file lawsuits to recover compensation for their injuries.