Info requred on how safe your oral iron chelator is? Especially Ayesha!

Something very unpleasent happened here in Rawalpindi. I hope that you guys disagree with me; the cause of the incident that I am going to state.

A young girl (of about 10-12 yrs) got some oral iron chelator tablets from her relatives aborad. They parceled them in an open format(without the packaging; thus the brand could not be determined). The pills were white round tablets with C etched on one side. Anyway, she used them for sometime and complained severe stomach ache. When her parents took her to the hospital, she was diagnosed of severe ulcer. After a few days the little girl died of that ulcer! The parents blamed the chelating pills as she was fine before using them and the pills didn't suit her.

Maybe she took the wrong dose?

My question to all using oral pills is that "Please tell me what's the brand of your pills and do they look anything like the description above and did you have any problems using them?"

Now I am facing Desferal crisis here in RWP. It seems that there is not a single vial left in the market. The last two sessions of my Desferal were about a month apart and finally last week I got my hands on just 4 vails for about Rs. 750 after so much haggling!

I know that Ayehsa from Karachi uses oral pills. I am now planning to do the same but I get scared thinking what happened to that little girl.

So, the questions below are for Ayesha.( I hope you are reading this!) First of all tell me what your pills look like( I hope they don't match the description above!) Second! If your pills suit you, then kindly tell me how you get them? Are they easily availabe in the market by a particular brand or you ask your chemist to get them for you? What should I tell my chemist so that he might get them for me!

By the way I haven't seen her posts lately. I hope the dear child is all right

Andy, let me know when you've read this, I've got something to tell you about the incident!

The pills described do not look like the kelfer capsules I have seen which are maroon and yellow.

It is very disconcerting to know though that whatever these pills are, that they were not being taken under a doctor's supervision. For those interested in using kelfer, please only do so under a doctor's supervision with regular monitoring of the white blood cells count.

This page is Cipla's Kelfer page and gives specific instructions for its use and monitroing. Anyone using kelfer or considering it should be familair with this information.

Kelfer

Patient Monitoring
The minimum monitoring which is essential for deferiprone therapy is as follows:
•  Haemoglobin, total and differential white cell counts and platelet counts at 1-2 weekly intervals or as recommended by the treating physician.
•  Serum ferritin at 3-4 monthly intervals or as recommended by the treating physician.

Note
If the total white cell count drops to less than 3000/cmm or Absolute Neutrophil Count (ANC) falls to less than 1,000/cmm or platelet count falls to less than 1,00,000/cmm the drug should be discontinued.

If the patient develops fever, sore throat or flu-like symptoms, the drug should be stopped and a complete blood count done immediately. If neutropenia is seen, appropriate therapy should be instituted. The patient may have to be hospitalized till the counts come back to normal. In such patients deferiprone should not be restarted.

In case the patient develops severe joint pain, swelling or difficulty in squatting/walking and no relief is obtained by administering ibuprofen/diclofenac or any other suitable NSAID, the therapy should be discontinued. The drug should not be restarted if joint pains recur.

Overdosage
There have been no reports of acute overdosage with deferiprone.

Hello All

Yeah, I have disappeared because Salman (my brother) was admitted in hospital because of Bone Pains and Stomach Ache, but now he is doing very well by the grace of God

As far the incident matters, I have told many people that Please Ask Your Doctor First, And If He/She Prescribe You Then Use It, Otherwise Don't Use Your Own Mind! It’s Risky!

They tablets I use are in a container, which has the all details and names of the company, brand and the location of company...

FerriproxTM 500 mg
Film-coated tablets deferiprone/
Apotex Europe LTD.
Rowan House, 41 London Street,
Reading, Berkshire, RG1 4PS
United Kingdom/Royaume-Uni

APO 500 is written on the one side of tablet, and its capsule type, white in color

These are the details written on the container... And I get them from the Hospital where I receive transfusion..., As far the way you can get is concerned its like, your doctor prescribe you then there is a Company in Karachi (I don’t know about any other city) name is ICICI, They are producing or wat-ever in Pakistan... you can get these tablets from there but they also have this rule that you must have your doctor letter with you

Side Effects: None has been seen in me, and None WAS seen in Salman but I guess they are appearing now as his blood counts has dropped and Doctor has told to stop the tablets

I hope this will help ya, I would love to help you brother Sajid and all other people, Thanks so much for taking notice of my absents

Take Cares, Bye-Bye

Good to know that those tablets were not Kelfer! I've also found pictures of Ferriprox on the web and like Ayesha said; they don't match it either! The only candidate remaining is the 500mg Exjade Tablet, but that too has IC etched on the side and not just C(according to Novartis description). I was quite sure it was just C, or was it IC?  :d'oh 

I wonder what she took!

This topic is good as closed. I give up!