Called the office of the podiatrist who pointlessly injected a dose of dexamethasone into my excruciating foot along about the beginning of September. It was disturbing enough when the New England Compounding Pharmacy’s list of recalled medications included this steroidal nostrum, even when only the stuff doctors were squirting into patients’ spines was known to cause problems. But today two more of their products are implicated, and the FDA is now saying that any injectable drug produced by NECC is “of significant concern.”
Although so far the offending spinal infusion seems not to have been shipped to Arizona, nevertheless NECC’s website says that in general they ship to every state in the union (well…it did, when it was online). So just because methylprednisolone acetate wasn’t sent to your state doesn’t mean none of the company’s scores of other compounds was sent.
After a good 8 or 10 minutes of obnoxious music and annoying advertising, a human being finally got on the phone. He rattled off the names of the doctor’s suppliers; none of them were NECC. Or at least, so he claimed.
So…that’s good. I guess.
If you’ve had any steroid injections for pain, it might be a good idea to check NECC’s list, and if the drug is on there, you might want to call your doctor’s office to find out where it came from. No one seems to know what are the incubation periods of any diseases the contaminating fungi can cause; in the case of meningitis, one person took 42 days to come down with it. At least it’s reassuring to know that your doctor didn’t get the drug from New England Compounding. If, however, that’s where it did come from, you should know to be on the lookout for any unusual symptoms.
Well that sucks! Shouldn’t my doctor figure this stuff out and just tell me? I did get an injection for some back pain — don’t remember what it is now though. Damn, now I’ve got to figure that out. :-/
@ TB: It looks like the easiest way to put your mind at rest is simply to call the doctor’s office and ask them where they get their injectable steroids. And ask them what they gave you.
Here in the People’s Republic of Canada, a doctor’s office would be responsible for checking the status of their own injectables and notifying affected patients. The implication is that they can take the minimum responsible action of alerting patients without admitting legal liability.
The Canadian system ain’t perfect but the lawyers (so far) have been kept on a leash. Let’s see if that lasts.