Side Effects Of Allopurinol
Side effects of allopurinol concern many gout patients.
Many side effects are merely a nuisance, but Allopurinol Hypersensitivity Syndrome is serious – often a killer.
It is unlikely to affect most gout sufferers, but if you also have impaired kidney function, you are particularly at risk.
But excess uric acid can impair kidney function, and allopurinol is the best treatment to lower uric acid.
So how do we balance allopurinol side effects?
Dalbeth and Stamp, in Allopurinol dosing in renal impairment: walking the tightrope between adequate urate lowering and adverse events, recognize that:
Allopurinol is the mainstay of urate-lowering therapy for patients with gout and impaired renal function.
They note that deadly Allopurinol Hypersensitivity Syndrome (AHS) is a rare, but real, risk. A risk that increases with kidney impairment.
They are concerned that current dosage guidelines do not accurately reflect real life risks for developing AHS. Sometimes allopurinol doses below the guideline levels can induce AHS, and sometimes higher doses can be tolerated with few adverse effects.
Like many aspects of gout, particularly when complicated by other diseases, they recommend that each case is managed individually. Taking into account recent research data, they advocate:
gradual introduction of allopurinol according to current treatment guidelines, with close monitoring of serum uric acid concentrations. In patients with severe disease and persistent hyperuricemia, allopurinol dose escalation above those recommended by the guidelines should be considered, with careful evaluation of the benefits and risks of therapy.
Most importantly, they conclude that more work is needed to clarify the safety and effectiveness of increasing allopurinol dosage, especially with patients who have impaired kidney function.
Please note that this is a reformatted page from the old style website. See my allopurinol pages for more information about other effects of allopurinol.
Allopurinol Misspellings
Like many medicines, allopurinol is often misspelled. Though spelling is often overrated, it pays to take extra care with medicines, as a misunderstanding might cause treatment problems in the unlikely event of a similar sounding drug being taken mistakenly.
- Allopurino
- Missing final l.
- Alluporinol
- lupo changed to lopu.
- Allupurinol
- lop changed to lup.
- Alopurinol
- allo changed to alo.
- Alopurenol
- allo changed to alo, and purin changed to puren.
- Alipurinol
- allo changed to ali.
- Alipurinal
- allo changed to ali, and nol changed to nal.
- Allipurinal
- allo changed to alli, and nol changed to nal.
- Alopurinal
- allo changed to alo, and nol changed to nal.
- Allopurinol
- This is the correct spelling of allopurinol - the most common gout treatment for lowering uric acid.
- Allopurinal
- nal ending changed to nol. This is the most frequent mis-spelling of allopurinol
- Alupurionol
- Allo changed to Alu, and extra o added before nol.
If you are aware of other alternative spellings, please share them on the gout forum.
Tags: allopurinol side effects