So today I'm going to share something that made my head asplode. I read a recently published pharmacist's newsletter today that basically recommended that "certain" patients on low dose aspirin be put on PPIs to combat an increased risk for gastritis, ulcers, etc. Now, this isn't all thats been swirling in recent pharmacy news about PPIs -- the last big event concerning them was a recently discovered drug interaction with clopidogrel (better known to most of you as Plavix). Anyway, back to the newsletter. It basically sets up a way to determine which patients are at the highest (as much as double) the risk for adverse GI events from low dose aspirin. History of PUD, cool. History of gastritis, cool. Recent gastrointesetinal surgery? Sure! Patient is taking clopidogrel, huh? What the hell? Yeah, if a patient is taking clopidrogrel and baby aspirin you should consider putting them on a drug that decreases the effects of the clopidogrel. I'll do that as soon as I hire a lawyer to sit on my shoulders all day.
To be fair, I quit reading at that point and went to run my head into a wall at how much sense this made at this point. In all honesty, it probably makes sense to maybe do an H2RA, or Protonix (which has the least potential for interactions, maybe). But guess what? Protonix isn't OTC, and Prilosec is! BTW Prilosec has the *greatest* potential for screwing around with Plavix. Ready to run your head into a wall too? Don't -- here's an awesome video:
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