When we are talking about the safety aspect of Fioricet, it is important to keep in mind that it is a combination drug and that it contains three active ingredients. These three, butalbital, caffeine and acetaminophen have to be considered when we are talking about the safety profile of this medication. As a result of this, you would expect that the list of side effects will be huge and that the same will be true for the list of possible interactions with other medications. However, the people who developed Fioricet made sure that the side effects are not that pronounced and there are in fact not that many side effects that might occur when using Fioricet.
For instance, these are the less serious side effects that Fioricet might cause and luckily, these are also the more common. They include drunken feeling, nausea, loss of appetite, anxiety, stomach pain, jitteriness, vomiting, dry mouth, lightheadedness, dizziness, confusion and drowsiness. If you know something about the individual ingredients in Fioricet, you may be able to recognize which of them is responsible for which of these side effects. The good news is that these side effects even though they are the most common are not that frequent and that you will most likely go through the entire treatment with Fioricet without experiencing any.
Some more serious side effects are fortunately extremely unlikely and in most cases they occur when the drug is not used properly or when there are some underlying causes why the patient is experiencing them. They include: uneven, pounding or fast heartbeat, easy bleeding and bruising, chills, fever, unusual weakness, body aches, dark urine, upper stomach pain, jaundice, lightheadedness, clay colored stools and shortness of breath. These are mainly signs of something serious happening and you must immediately contact your doctor.
When we are talking about the interactions that Fioricet might be involved in, we again need to acknowledge the fact that these three ingredients are the reason why this list is somewhat longer than usually. For instance, due to butalbital in Fioricet that can cause sleepiness, Fioricet can interact with other medications that produce hypnotic effects, like anticonvulsants, anxiolytics, antidepressants, narcotic painkillers, allergy and cold medications, other sleeping pills and muscle relaxants. Other drugs that might interact with Fioricet include antibiotics, gout medications like sulfinpyrazone and probenecid, steroids like mometasone, fluticasone and dexamethasone, zidovudine, isoniazid, warfarin, as well as clomipramine, phenytoin, desipramine, imipramine, amitriptyline and Phenobarbital.
The safest way to avoid these interactions and any other interactions that we might have omitted here is to check any potential combinations with a doctor or the pharmacist.
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