Do you ever feel like you can’t get ahead when it comes to knowing and remembering things? It hit me hard the other day. New drugs are coming out all the time, new guideline changes, new studies on drug interactions, safety alerts, and on and on. I feel like I can’t keep up and it’s frustrating. It won’t keep me from trying however.
I got a question about Trintellix the other day and whether I thought it would be appropriate to use. I was thinking in my head that sounds so familiar. Then I thought, they must have meant Brintellix, the antidepressant. So I said, “Did you mean Brintellix”? “Nope, Trintellix” they stated back. Finally I caved and said, “I gotta look it up before I say anything about it being appropriate or not”.
So I look up Trintellix and start reading. It has serotonin activity and is for depression. My mind is just spinning at this point because I knew that Brintellix was used for depression. Finally I read a little further and see a safety alert was issued and the name was changed from BRINTELLIX!!!! I totally understand why they did it, but just wanted to demonstrate that it is so hard to keep up on everything, especially drugs you don’t see used that often! So next time you forget something you should probably should remember, you’re not the only one.
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That’s why I use the Epocrates app on my phone often!! Great post!!
There is NOTHING wrong with saying “let me check / look that up”.
I actually had a patient come into the hospital on Brintellix and since it’s not on the formulary when the doctor asked me what is an equivalent drug, I heard Brilinta instead of Brintellix. Thank goodness I asked for the spelling. Although I didn’t report this as a LASA, the call for the name change came through like a month after that phone call. It was a happy coincidence when I found out about the name change. Only because of that phone call will I remember Trintellix used to be Brintellix. Otherwise, there’s always an overload of info from the FDA and it’s hard to keep up with name changes and package insert changes.