Warning about drinking alcohol and taking common prescription medications at the same time as 68-year-old man suffers from organ failure

A man was hospitalized with a life-threatening condition after doing something more than a million Americans do every day: taking antidepressants and drinking.

The anonymous patient was using the popular antidepressant escitalopram, better known in the US by its brand name Lexapro.

He drank occasionally and one day, after consuming ‘considerable’ amounts of alcohol, he developed muscle pain, tremors and fainted.

Doctors suspected that his Lexapro was causing his muscles to spontaneously break down, causing bits of damaged tissue to leak into his blood, clogging his kidneys and leaving him in life-threatening renal failure.

The patient had a history of bipolar disorder and light alcohol use. Doctors did not specify how much he had been drinking before coming to the emergency room, but described it as “substantial.”

In rare cases, a breakdown of muscle tissue can lead to kidney failure. Some case reports have linked this condition to antidepressants

Researchers aren’t sure how antidepressants cause this rapid muscle breakdown, but one theory is that they cause prolonged muscle contractions, leading to cell damage.

The case, which occurred in Romania in 2023, was revealed in the American Journal of Case ReportsIt is an extremely rare side effect of antidepressants, although it has been reported in other cases.

“The findings emphasize the need for close and ongoing monitoring of renal function in individuals receiving long-term treatment with psychiatric medications, regardless of dosage,” the study authors said.

About 43 million Americans used antidepressants in 2018, the majority recent data available from the CDC national trends.

The most commonly prescribed antidepressants are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). These are medications that increase serotonin levels. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that regulates mood, sleep, and sex drive.

According to a survey by the American Medical Association (AIDS), more than 70 percent of Americans who take antidepressants use SSRIs. research from Rush University.

Popular brands include Zoloft, Prozac, and Lexapro. The Official FDA Label of Lexapro advises not to drink alcohol while taking the medicine.

In the case of the Romanian patient, he had been taking various types of psychiatric medications to treat his bipolar disorder for at least five years.

His current cocktail consisted of Lexapro, anti-epileptics and alcohol.

When the man was admitted to the Emergency Hospital in Bucharest, Romania, he had been suffering from diarrhea, muscle pain, tremors and high blood pressure for two days. He had also passed out after drinking “significant” amounts of alcohol.

They discovered he had rhabdomyolysis, a rare condition in which muscle cells break down rapidly and release material into the bloodstream, blocking the kidneys and potentially causing kidney failure.

He probably passed out from the alcohol because his kidneys had already stopped working, which meant his body couldn’t properly filter the effects of the alcohol from his blood.

The doctors wrote that the condition was not caused by alcohol, but that alcohol likely made the condition worse.

After doctors took him off Lexapro and put him on fluids through an IV, he stabilized.

But when they started him back on the medication, his condition began to return. The doctors assumed that the SSRI had caused the rare condition in the first case.

Doctors aren’t sure how often this happens, or how SSRIs might be causing it. They’ve noticed it in a few other cases, including a teenager in Norway in 2023a 25 year old woman in New York in 2016 and a 13 year old boy in New York in 2018.

Lexapro is one of the popular antidepressants that work on the neurotransmitter serotonin. Similar drugs are Zoloft and Prozac

It may be that taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which increase the amount of the neurotransmitter in your body in hopes of improving your mood, can also cause your muscles to contract.

Researchers from Norway suggested that it’s possible that these drugs cause your muscles to contract or tense for a longer period of time, causing them to break down and release their contents into the blood.

In other cases, leaky muscle cell syndrome occurs when a person’s muscles are injured or they have to rest for too long.

This syndrome is just one of many causes that can cause kidney failure.

Often these conditions are caused by conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, or a long history of using medications that can be harmful to the kidneys, such as over-the-counter pain relievers.

In total, approximately 750,000 Americans are affected by kidney failure each year.

Your kidneys are responsible for filtering toxins out of your body. So when they slow down or stop working, you get sick with nausea, vomiting, fatigue, confusion, swelling, and muscle cramps.

If left untreated, this can eventually lead to death.

The scientists who published the case study wrote that doctors should consider this rare condition when prescribing SSRIs to their patients, as well as whether they have a family history of kidney disease or alcohol use.