[MOL] Stopping medicine before surgery may be dangerous

[Joicy <joicy@erols.com>]

Thought this info was important to pass on...thinking of you all, and
keeping you in my prayers. Love, Joicy

Stopping medicine before surgery may be dangerous
    [09/24/2000; Reuters News Service]

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - If you've ever had surgery, your doctor
may have told you not to eat after a certain hour the night before,
to refrain from alcohol, and perhaps stop taking prescription
drugs. Although the aim of these precautions is to ensure that
the operation goes smoothly, the practice of abruptly stopping
prescription drugs should be reconsidered, according to a report. In
fact, the consequences of stopping prescription medications before
surgery may be so serious that they are as big a problem as drug
errors, according to Dr. David W. Noble of Grampian University
in the UK, and Dr. Henrik Kehlet of Hvidovre University Hospital
in Denmark.Writing in the September 23rd issue of the British
Medical Journal, Noble and Kehlet cite research showing that
patients who stop taking prescription drugs before surgery may
be at increased risk of complications. In one study, people who
stopped taking medications for cardiovascular disease for 2 or
more days had a 27% rate of complications, compared with a 12%
rate for those who skipped the drugs for fewer than 2 days.Some
drugs that could make surgery dangerous, such as blood thinners,
most likely need to be stopped before an operation, according
to the authors. But there are ways to reduce the impact of stopping
drugs, they note. When possible, patients could be allowed to
take their normal medications until the day before the surgery,
Noble and Kehlet suggest.

The full article can be found at:

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000922/hl/surgery_3.html

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