If you take medication to relieve arthritis pain, you may worry about what it's going to do to your stomach. The good news is that the wonder drug Celebrex has passed an early tolerance test.
In five different 12-week clinical studies of patients taking Celebrex, researchers say they could find no increase in upper gastrointestinal side effects when dosage levels were increased from 100 mg per day to 800 mg per day. The recommended dosage for most patients is 200 mg daily for osteoarthritis and up to 400 mg for rheumatoid arthritis.
The findings, presented at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the American College of Rheumatology, show patients were monitored for such side effects as dyspepsia, as well as abdominal pain and nausea, which are often associated with arthritis medications.
Another study presented at the meeting shows the impact of arthritis medication side effects. An analysis of about 800 arthritis patients finds more than one-third stopped taking medications because they couldn't tolerate the stomach problems.
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