Painkiller med mix kidney warning
MILLIONS of Australians using common painkillers available in supermarkets could be at risk of kidney failure if they are also using two blood pressure lowering medications.
And experts are calling for the government to look into making the painkillers pharmacy-only medications to better control the risk.
Painkillers including ibuprofen (like Nurofen), naproxen (like Naprosyn and Maxidol) and diclofenac (like Voltaren) can cause acute kidney injury in a phenomenon known as the “triple whammy” combination. This happens when they are combined with blood pressure medications called ACE inhibitors and diuretics.
More than 3 million Australians use ACE inhibitors each year and 250,000 use diuretics, putting a large number at risk if they also use the pain killers.
New research into drug use in 10,000 residents of 68 nursing homes in NSW has found 2 per cent were taking the dangerous triple whammy combination.
“When this rate is applied to Australia’s residential aged care population of approximately 259,000 people, in the order of over 5000 people in residential aged care may be triple whammy users,” Macquarie University researcher Dr Kim Lind found.
The research was published in the Journal of Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety.
Dr Lind is calling for electronic medication systems in aged care villages to red-flag the medicine combination to protect elderly people from the risks.
The number of people at risk of the triple whammy is far greater than the study showed because patients in the general community also use the blood pressure medications and were ignorant about the dangers of combining them with anti-inflammatory drugs, Dr Lind said.