Anyone living with Type II diabetes knows how hard their life is. regulating your blood sugar almost hourly is a struggle. You have to watch what you eat, what you drink, maintain hydration as well as control your activity. Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes which leads to adult diabetes and affecting millions. If you have type 2 diabetes your body does not use insulin properly which is called insulin resistance. At first, your pancreas makes extra insulin, but over time it isn’t able to keep up and can’t make enough insulin to keep your blood glucose at normal levels. To assist with insulin resistance, drugs called thiazolidinediones or glitazones were designed to act as insulin sensitizers. This allows patients with Type 2 diabetes to become more sensitive to insulin and maintain a proper sugar balance.
What Is Actos? 
Actos or pioglitazone is a thiazolidinedione drug in tablet form similar to Avandia for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes. Like other drugs of this class, it is not used for the treatment of Type 1 diabetes. Actos helps decrease insulin resistance and decreases the glucose (sugar) made in the liver. This allows the body to better dispose of excess blood sugar which in turn makes the cells more sensitive to insulin. Some classic symptoms to determine if you have Type 2 diabetes is frequent urination, constant hunger and excess thirst. Prescription drugs such as pioglitazone hcl can be used by themselves to treat Type 2 diabetes or can be used in combination with other drugs such as metformin.
Actos Side Effects 
There are some mild side effects that are associated with using Actos. First let us begin with the mild side effects such as weight gain, an increase of upper respiratory tract infection, sinusitis, headaches, tooth problems and pain in your muscles. You can also add to the list fluid retention and edema (excess of watery fluid collecting in the cavities or tissues of the body, which in turn increases the chances of congestive heart failure. In you are a woman, studies showed that taking Actos increased the risk of fractured of the upper arms, hands and feet.
The Actos lawsuit comes into play because of the bladder cancer that developed from the use of this drug for the treatment of diabetes. It turns out that when this drug was tested on male rats, they suffered from bladder tumors. During recent trials, the results found a much higher degree of bladder cancer with patients using Actos. The FDA has asked for more testing to from the drug manufacturer (Takeda Pharmaceuticals). Lawyers didn’t wait for the government to provide action. Lawsuits were filed based on several criteria including failing to warn the public and health care providers that taking Actos for longer than 12 months may increase the risk of bladder cancer, concealing testing and research data from the public, misleading the public, manufacturing an unsafe and defective product and knowing the dangers of the product but selling it regardless to maximize profits. There has been a huge success in which thousands of patients who were affected by the outcome of Actos sued for damages. So far there have been over 9000 cases settled.
Have you been harmed by using this prescription drug?
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