From Blood Pressure to Diabetes — 10 Medications You Must NOT Stop on Your Own
Times Now
If you have chronic conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, or high cholesterol, you should never stop taking your medication abruptly without first consulting an expert, warned Dr Ankita Kalra.
The Ayurvedic expert said even though it may seem to you that your symptoms have improved, stopping these medications can lead to serious and even life-threatening health complications. According to Dr Kalra, a few medicines that you always need to be tandem with a doctor are:
Blood pressure medicines
High blood pressure or hypertension is a serious condition - but one which typically has no symptoms until a lot of damage has been done. Because of this, it is often hard for patients to comply with their medication regimen. With no returning or worsening symptoms when you forget to take a pill, remembering to do so becomes much more challenging. Antihypertensive medicines like Amlodipine, Losartan, Metoprolol, and Ramipril can lead to headaches, anxiety, agitation, and nausea, or even “heart attack, stroke or kidney damage,” said Dr Kalra.
Heart medication
According to Dr Kalra, quitting heart medicine without consulting a doctor can also be extremely dangerous and have potentially fatal outcomes like heart attacks, strokes, and a worsening of your underlying heart condition. Suddenly stopping heart medication can cause a rebound effect, like a sharp increase in blood pressure, and can prevent your body from healing properly or lead to a sudden increase in the risk of cardiac events.
Anti-depressants
If you are on anti-anxiety medication or anti-depressants, make sure not to discontinue them without consulting a healthcare professional. Abruptly stopping Sertraline, Escitalopram, Fluoxetine, Venlafaxine, or Alprazolam can lead to withdrawal symptoms, a rebound of anxiety, and other potentially dangerous health issues. A doctor can help you create a safe tapering plan to reduce your dosage and monitor your progress gradually.
Steroids
Quitting steroids, or corticosteroids like prednisone and dexamethasone, suddenly without consultation can lead to a high risk of serious and potentially life-threatening side effects like suppression of the adrenal glands during steroid treatment that cause dangerously low blood pressure, collapse, and unconsciousness.
Diabetes medication
Diabetes medications, especially insulin, are very important to be taken with the perfect dose and time. “Stopping insulin or oral meds like Metformin suddenly can cause dangerously high blood sugar, leading to diabetic coma,” said Dr Kalra.
Seizures medication
Medicines that help control seizures – also known as antiepileptics, like phenytoin, carbamazepine, and levetiracetam – can restart them if you abruptly stop taking them. According to Dr Kalra, sometimes it can also risk more severe or frequent occurrences. When seizures recur, they may be more frequent or severe than they were previously. In some cases, the seizures may become more difficult to control, and resuming medication may not be immediately effective.
Antipsychotics
Psychiatric medications or antipsychotics like Olanzapine, Risperidone, and Quetiapine help keep symptoms of psychosis, agitation, or hospitalization at bay. You must not stop antipsychotics without consulting a doctor because it can cause withdrawal symptoms, a return, or their worsening – along with other serious health consequences. Abruptly stopping can lead to withdrawal psychosis due to the brain's sudden over-sensitivity to dopamine, which is often mistaken for the return of the original condition.
Antibiotics
Antibiotics eliminate the most vulnerable bacteria, leading to rapid improvement in your symptoms. However, some stronger bacteria may survive. If you stop the treatment early because you feel better, these resilient bacteria multiply fast, causing the infection to return, potentially in a more severe form. And so stopping early “can lead to infection relapse, antibiotic resistance, and incomplete treatment,” said Dr Kalra.
Thyroid medication
Thyroid medications like levothyroxine help replace the thyroxine -T4, which is usually produced by the thyroid gland. It is used primarily to treat hypothyroidism, a condition where the thyroid gland is underactive and does not produce enough thyroid hormone. And if you stop mid-way, it can lead to symptoms of hypothyroidism or even myxedema coma.
Blood thinner
Blood thinners or anticoagulants – like warfarin, apixaban, and rivaroxaban - prevent and treat blood clots by stopping platelets from clumping together or slowing down your body's natural clotting process. They do not make the blood thinner but rather reduce the risk of life-threatening conditions like heart attacks, strokes, and pulmonary embolisms that are caused by blockages from blood clots. And so, abruptly stopping these medicines can increase the risk of the same life-threatening conditions.