When you receive medical treatment, you expect it to be safe and effective. After all, your medical providers have spent years, perhaps even decades, furthering their education, obtaining experience, and adhering to training requirements to ensure that they can provide the best care possible.
Medical devices and pharmaceuticals also undergo rigorous testing to ensure that they’re safe for patients.
Yet, all too often people who come into the contact with the healthcare system end up significantly hurt. If you’re in that boat now, you’re probably wondering what caused your harm.
If you’re on medication, then there’s a fair chance that a defective drug is responsible for the damage that’s been caused to you.
How can you tell if a defective drug is responsible for your harm?
Determining whether a medication is responsible for adverse reactions and extensive damage to your health and well-being can be difficult, especially if you’ve been subject to other forms of treatment. However, there are steps that you can take to gain a clearer sense of the cause of your damage, which includes the following:
- Getting a physical exam: Part of the difficulty of determining whether a defective drug is responsible for your harm is ruling out other causes. However, you can start narrowing the window of possibilities by having a thorough physical exam.
- Having lab work done: A close analysis of your blood and other key portions of your body systems can provide detailed insight into how a particular medication has affected you. This, in turn, can help you figure out whether your harm is attributable to a defective medication or some other cause.
- Analyze your medical records: Although the damage caused to you may be attributable to a defective drug, it might also be an extension of improper dosage or the prescribing of a wrong medication. By scrutinizing your medical records, you can better determine if the medication regimen implemented by your doctor is appropriate under the circumstances.
- Check the FDA’s recall list: Drugs are recalled all the time. Unfortunately, they’re not always widely publicized. As a result, you might continue taking a defective drug without realizing that it’s been subject to a recall. By checking the FDA’s recall list, though, you can more quickly determine the status of your medication.
Hopefully once you take these steps you’ll have a better idea of the role that your medication played in the decline of your medical condition.
What do you do if you suspect you were hurt by a defective drug?
If you think that a defective drug has caused you harm, then you need to consider taking legal action. Doing so is the only way you’re going to find accountability and recover the compensation that you need to offset your damages.
Of course, there’s no guarantee that you’ll win one of these cases, but you can significantly increase your chances by diligently working to gather the evidence that you need to support your claim. While this means analyzing the evidence at hand, it also means discussing your circumstances with experts who may be able to provide you with the opinions that you need to buttress your legal arguments.
Pursuing defective drug litigation can be stressful, time-consuming, and overwhelming, but it’s oftentimes necessary to secure the outcome that you want, protect your future, and obtain a sense of closure.
With that in mind, if you’re ready to take action, then please continue to read up on defective drug litigation and the steps that you can take to protect your interests.
