Pradaxa is a pharmaceutical drug that’s administered as a blood thinner in patients. However, one of the biggest and most widely known side effects of this drug is uncontrollable bleeding.

As with all blood thinners, there’s a risk of internal bleeding. With Pradaxa however, this risk can be fatal. In a recent report released by the FDA, Pradaxa was found to have literally thousands of adverse side effects related to it, with 100’s of them being deemed fatal.

In addition to these scary statistics, the drug has been linked to more deaths and problems in 2011 than nearly 800 drugs that the FDA reviewed.

The main reason why Praxdaxa is given to patients is to help with Atrial fibrillation, also known as AF, which reduces the chances of stroke. AF is where the top two chambers in the heart start beating dramatically and erratically – as often as 300 times a minute. However, these beats are not strong enough to push the blood out of the heart, so the blood starts to gather in the heart. Eventually, if nothing is done, then the blood will clot.

It’s when these clots leave the heart and travel to the brain that’s when the real trouble starts.

Pradaxa inhibits the clotting enzyme in the body called thrombin. If you want to find out more about thrombin and other related drug stuff, then websites like Drugnews.net can provide you with excellent information.

While Pradaxa does an excellent job at stopping the blood from clotting, it also has the reverse effect of preventing the body to stop bleeding.

Lets take an example of this. A bruise is a common form of an internal bleeding injury. The tissue under the skin is damaged, so the body will naturally start to clot the blood, so that the bleeding stops.

However, those who take blood thinners don’t have the same ability to clot blood as well with these minor injuries.

The reason why internal bleeding is so dangerous, is because doctors have yet not discovered any way to stop it with patients on Pradaxa.

One of the biggest challenges facing the medical community is treating these Pradaxa bleeding situations. Because there is no antidote available, bleeding to death is the number 1 scare associated with the drug.

Because the drug inhibits the clotting mechanism, medical personnel cannot inject any clotting agents into the body to counteract the drug.

All the doctors can do it to closely monitor the patient and wait until the drug leaves the body by natural courses. How long this can take depends on the individual, but with patients with dysfunctional kidneys then it can take up to a full 24 hours for it to leave.

Some doctors will recommend kidney dialysis to help remove the drug from the body faster. If patients are in a weakened state, then this may not be a wise choice as they could have a tough time going through the dialysis. Taking this into consideration along with the fact that dialysis only removes about 60% of the drug – it may not be a viable option.