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Re: Pericarditis Query
Lani
I had no idea of this. Colchicine comes from a plant, the meadow saffron. Colchis was the old name for the area of Russia known as Georgia (the south part bordering on the black sea where the city of Sochi is.
The old use for colchicine was for gout which is a painful arthritis usually in the big toe. Gout occurs when the uric acid levels are too high and the uric acid deposits in the joint of the big toe. It is so effective against gout that drs would use Coilchicine to diagnose gout. If the pain was relieved through the use of the typical Colchicne dosing the pain was due to gout. This goes back to ancient times. Naturally the drug wasnt FDA approved because I dont think the FDA had as much power in 2000BC as it has now. I guess the FDA is demanding that we "prove" that Colchicine is safe and effective. It is effective in gout buut the drug has toxicity so I dont know about safe but if used correctly it can be made safe. The gout patient was dosed with say 0.6mg Colchicine evey hour until pain was relieved or the patient got diarrhea. Usually the pain of gout was relieved before the diarrhea ensued.
Although gout is a disease of excess uric acid Colchicine has no effect on uric acid levels a ssay, Allopurinol does. Colchicine attacks the white blood cells that are ingesting the uric acid particles that have been deposited into the joint. When the white cells attack the uric acid particles inflammatory chemicals are released and this causes the joint pain of gout which may be severe.
Actually Colchicine acts more like a cancer chemo drug than anything else. Remember in high school when they wanted to show mitosis or cell division? They would incubate growing onions with Colchicine and the onion cells would be have their mitotic ability stopped at metaphase and under the microscope you can see the onion cell chromosomes clearly separating during cell division.
It is the chemo like action of Colchicine that makes it so valuable in other conditions like the Pericarditis mentioned. I used to dispense it when I had my own pharmacy often.
It was quite cheap in 1987. I cant believe they are restricting the use of this old but very valuable drug. Medicine has dropped a lot of the science and replaced it with politics. Sad.
Paul
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