Elmiron Blindness Lawsuit
If you or a family member has suffered vision loss or even blindness after taking urinary and bladder pain drug Elmiron, you may be eligible for payments by means of an Elmiron blindness lawsuit. Contact the Willis Law Firm today for your free case review.
Can Elmiron Cause Blindness?
As for the question of can a bladder pain drug named Elmiron affect the eyes and cause blindness, the answer, according to scientific data and research, is yes. Indeed, research clearly shows a connection between long-term use of prescription 100mg oral capsules of Elmiron to treat bladder pain and the onset of vision loss or blindness. Such vision loss can take the form of conditions known as maculopathy as well as pigmentary maculopathy. These conditions ultimately can lead to blindness.
What is Maculopathy?
As for what is maculopathy, which is also called macular degeneration, it impacts the macula, which is a layer of tissues at the back of the eye and in front of the light-sensitive retina.
When the macula is damaged, that can result in a loss of visual acuity, or sharpness of vision. Such visual sharpness is what is tested in common eye exams, in which the patient is asked to discern increasingly smaller letters and numbers from a distance, one eye at a time. Beyond visual sharpness being lost due to maculopathy, victims also may suffer from a gradual loss of their central vision, as opposed to their side or peripheral vision. And given enough time, the condition also can lead to blindness.
Other symptoms of maculopathy include:
- Trouble readjusting after exposure to bright light
- Loss of contrast and color sensitivity
- Vision distortion, or metamorphopsia, which is when objects seem strangely misshapen or distorted to the viewer
- Hallucinations, such as the seeming appearance of flashing lights
- Blurred vision
What is Pigmentary Maculopathy?
As for what is pigmentary maculopathy, that condition means the patient may be developing pigmented spots of the retina. With pigmentary maculopathy or other forms of macular degeneration, sufferers may note a dark spot in their vision when they look straight ahead. That spot may expand over time.
Pigmentary maculopathy is the disorder which appears to be impacting Elmiron users the most -- and may even be unique to them.
Other Elmiron Vision Loss Symptoms
According to the Journal of Opthamalogy, vision problems for Elmiron patients also have included these vision loss symptoms:
- Difficulty or trouble reading
- Difficulty or trouble seeing near objects
- Dimmed vision
- Needing a long time for eyes to adjust to the dark
- Paracentral scotoma, which is a section of vision loss in a person’s field of vision
What is Elmiron?
At this point, you may be asking “What is Elmiron?” We can answer that. Elmiron actually is not a drug so much as a brand name for a drug, and that drug is pentosan polysulfate sodium. Prescription Elmiron oral capsules with active ingredient pentosan polysulfate sodium were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1985. Their function was to treat pressure and pain in the bladder caused by interstitial cystitis, or IC.
Since IC is a chronic or ongoing condition, it is necessary for Elmiron users to take the drug for a sustained period of time. Otherwise, the pain can return. For decades Elmiron has been sold in the U.S. by Belgium-based Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. That company is owned by U.S. mega-pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, whose existence stretches back to the 1800s.
Johnson & Johnson probably is a familiar name to you, and as such you may trust it as a brand. But in fact, Johnson & Johnson has a long history of its defective drugs causing injuries -- injuries which then can lead to injury lawsuits by victims of Johnson & Johnson’s negligence. You may have heard recently that such lawsuits include injury claims over the ovarian cancer caused by Johnson & Johnson’s talc-based baby powder, which American women have used unsuspectingly for decades.
Similarly, persons suffering from urinary or bladder pain who trusted Elmiron to be a safe pain-relief treatment instead may have suffered a horrible injury such as blindness as a dangerous Elmiron side effect.
How to Get an Elmiron Blindness Lawsuit
If you or a loved one took Elmiron for six months or more and then suffered vision loss or even blindness, you should know how to get an Elmiron blindness lawsuit. That starts with contacting us today at the Willis Law Firm for a free legal review of your case. It’s not only free, but it also comes with no obligations, and it is entirely confidential.
We will advise you on your prospects for winning an Elmiron eye injury lawsuit -- a lawsuit which can deliver payments to you for your injury losses. Such payments can include money for your medical and doctor bills, your lost present and future salary or wages due to your Elmiron eye injury, and your pain and suffering. A successful Elmiron blindness lawsuit also can send a message to big pharmaceutical companies that Americans won’t take their negligence lying down. Instead, you can fight back with experienced Elmiron attorneys or defective drug lawyers, which our law firm can provide for you.
Your Elmiron blindness lawsuit can assert that the drug’s maker not only caused your injury but also was negligent by failing to warn physicians and potential users of the drug’s full dangers via its product’s labeling.
Though Elmiron’s label does disclose some side effects of using the drug, its packaging fails to feature any warnings about its potential for causing maculopathy -- a condition which can lead to blindness.
Janssen and Johnson & Johnson should have been aware that Elmiron could cause maculopathy and ultimately blindness, and they should have warned physicians and potential users of the drug with a warning of that on its packaging. This galling lack of such a warning can be part of the basis for your Elmiron blindness lawsuit, which our law firm can provide you.
Talk to an Elmiron Lawyer Today
If someone in your family suffered such vision loss or blindness or other vision problems after taking Elmiron for six months or more, you need to get Elmiron lawyers to help you with your legal case.
To do so, contact us at the Willis Law Firm for a free legal review of your case. We’ll provide Elmiron lawyer to help you determine your chances for a successful Elmiron blindness lawsuit. Then you can decide how you want to proceed. Find out what rights you may have for legal damages in a Elmiron vision loss lawsuit.
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