Patient/caregiver was educated on precautions to be exercised while taking gablofen as follows:
- Discuss with your physician regarding your history of hypotension and bradycardia, if any. Gablofen has the potential to cause or enhance the likelihood for low blood pressure and reduced heart rate, which can sometimes be life-threatening. This risk with gablofen can be even high when it is taken in high doses or along with any other products and medications causing low blood pressure, such as, antihypertensive medications, antidepressants, antianxiety medications, and sedatives. Discuss with your physician regarding all your other medications and their risk of causing/aggravating risk for hypotensive and bradycardia episodes. Try spacing them out to prevent exacerbation of hypotensive episodes. Report any episodes of increased dizziness, syncope, and loss of consciousness while taking Gablofen. Hypotension and bradycardia, secondary to gablofen intake, can contribute to the confusion and dizziness, thus significantly increasing the risk for fall and accidents. Try changing the positions very slowly, until you are used to the side-effects of Gablofen. Sudden change of positions can make the confusion and dizzy episodes even worse and precipitate accidents and falls. Compliance with use of recommended assistive device, if any, can help with fall and accident prevention. Observing compliance with log maintenance of everyday blood pressure readings and reporting any consistently low blood pressure readings to your physician, can help with necessary changes made on your care plan, to help better management of blood pressure numbers and prevent hypotensive episodes from occurring.
- Gablofen, especially when taken in high doses, can lead to depression of respiratory center in the brain, exacerbation of SOB, and difficulty breathing. Low oxygen levels in the body with elevated carbon-di-oxide levels can contribute to altered levels of consciousness, sedation, slow & shallow breathing, severely compromised endurance and exercise tolerance, extreme fatigue, and development of seizures. Severe cases might also lead to emergency situations, such as, respiratory arrest and can result in serious debility and death. This risk with gablofen can be even high when it is taken along with any other products and medications causing central nervous and respiratory depression, such as, alcohol, opioid pain medications, antidepressants, antianxiety medications, and sedatives. Gablofen must either be avoided for a better alternative or used with extra caution with close watch on breathing patterns in individuals with history of breathing issues, such as, asthma and COPD, to prevent development of any episodes of severe SOB and respiratory arrest. Notify your physician and seek emergency medical help for any difficulty breathing following gablofen intake.
- Gablofen could potentially interact with a lot of other medications and precipitate serious reactions. If you are being newly started on gablofen, discuss with your physician regarding all your current medications and their safety with gablofen. Also, notify your physician regarding any current gablofen intake, if you are being started on any new medications and discuss their safety with gablofen.
