Darvocet Is Off The Market!

Are you asking me to believe that it took the FDA over fifty years to decide Darvon and Darvocet should be taken off the market?!

It appears even the panel of experts couldn’t agree:

The pain medications Darvon and Darvocet should be pulled off the market, according to a recommendation approved on a 14-12 vote by a panel of medical experts assembled by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

For those of us who suffer from chronic pain, this is a catastrophe. Anyone who uses Darvocet or its generic, propoxyphene, which is a mild drug, will attest to its effectiveness, and it doesn’t make you drowsy. In case you’re wondering how many people that is–in 2009, 10 million people depended upon propoxyphene to help make their life livable. Deaths linked to Darvocet annually – .0005%.

What I find so wrong about this is–I would like to be able to make my own choice. Give me the facts and let me decide whether the risk is worth the pain relief.

Here are some comments from Join Together. It appears a lot of people would like to make their own decisions.

According to an article on the link Darvocet should be banned.. 23 million prescriptions per year are issued, (for the last 50 years??) the article also mentions 2,100 deaths from 1981 to 1999 (18 years). This does not seem to be a high risk ratio to me. I can only conclude the people making these waves have never dealt with moderate to severe chronic pain.

Here’s another:

I hope that this medicine is NOT taken off the market. I am deathly allergic to ALL NSAIDS.

And another:

My wife had a stroke and none of the other drugs that she was given gave the relief for the nerve pain that she has. If it is taken off the market then what can she use? The other drugs are either more addictive or so strong that it causes her to sleep 24/7. What quality of life would she have without it? Darvocet seems to be the only drug that actually cuts down the pain to tolerable level.

I’m really, really tired of the government taking such good care of me.

Now, I’m in the process of trying out other drugs that might be able to take the place of Darvocet. If and when I find it, I can be sure it will cost a whole lot more than my 50-year-old medication.

I’m sure the pharmaceutical companies are happy with the FDA’s decision. They must be jumping up and down with joy.

5 thoughts on “Darvocet Is Off The Market!

  1. Trish

    They would rather you get hooked on the oxycodone pills I guess. And yet they wont approve some cancer drugs that work and are used in other countries. they want us sick and dependant. A healthy populace is not profitable.

    Reply
    1. Frances Ellen Post author

      To Trish & Robin
      I’m so angry that I now have to try other pills to replace Darvocet. None have been around for fifty years like Darvocet. My feeling is I’m more at risk to have a heart attack while trying one of these new drugs.

      Not that anyone was actually buying Darvocet. Everyone was prescribed the generic. That makes Darvocet worthless. I suppose the expedient answer was to take it off the shelves. That automatically means your doctor won’t prescribe the generic of a banned drug and even if you could get a prescription for the generic, no pharmacy would fill it because the door is now opened to lawsuits.

      Good move by the pharmaceutical companies. You’ve got to take your hat off to them. They’re cagey. It’s all about greed.

      Reply
  2. Robin

    Trish you are so right. The pharmacological companies make sure that people in medical school are given lots of “gifts” and incentives to ensure that they get all of their patients on as much medication as possible.

    My chiropractor, since retired, once gave me an article which showed that the pharmacological companies wanted to get the entire population on at least five medications.

    Have you noticed too the number of “new” diseases out there? I feel that they are inventing stuff just so they can sell a drug for it.

    Reply
  3. InPain Forever

    Well, I think it’s all greed. They’ve taken the only medicine I could take, and now, I’m in pain for the rest of my life…

    I have intermittent back pain and cannot take other narcotics. Since Darvocet with withdrawn, the only withdrawal symptom I experienced was an ULCER from taking too much Ibuprofen for my pain.

    I’d love to know how to LEGALLY get darvocet again. If anyone knows, please let us know. I never took it every day, but when I needed relief, it was a GODSEND. Now, I face the rest of my life in pain… and it scares me because I can’t take most NSAIDS (aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen) due to the ulcer risk and Tylenol doesn’t do anything for my pain in safe doses, despite the ‘studies’ that ‘prove’ Darvocet was no more effective than tylenol. I’ve literally tried everything.

    I can’t take most antidpressants without my world heaving all the time and the inability to think straight (these are sometimes given as pain killer substitutes). I can’t take other narcotics, they make not only make me sick to the stomach, they don’t give much pain relief and make me ‘loopy’ too. Not a good combination if you actually have to function in the world.

    I would love to try to get the ban overturned… I know I’m not the only person in this position. Not everyone has heart disease or gets heart symptoms. A black box warning would have been sufficient to prevent people from using it who shouldn’t. Some of the rest of us really would like the choice to take a risk that gives us a quality of life.

    There are a lot of MUCH more dangerous drugs out there that are still on the market… some are even pain killers… Yet, they stay on the market b/c rich companies are behind them, lobbying for them to stay on the market. Who is lobbying for us?

    Reply
    1. Frances Ellen Post author

      Believe me I feel your pain in more ways than one. I wish there was some way to get it back, especially since I can’t take NSAIDS either due to ulcer. But Darvocet stopped bringing in the big bucks, so we, the people, lost out once again.

      Reply

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