Larry’s Log

I have a little touch of arthritis in my feet. I became aware of this last summer after a trip to the beach which included long walks in the sand resulted in my hardly being able to walk.

A trip to the doctor and some x-rays revealed that arthritis had set into my feet. The doctor prescribed Vioxx which had me back to normal within a few days. I haven’t had a reoccurance of the degree of pain since then. Anytime my feet begin to hurt in the same way I take Aleve for a day or two and I’m back to normal again.

Today I’ve read that Vioxx is being pulled.

“In this study, there was an increased relative risk for confirmed cardiovascular events, such as heart attack and stroke, beginning after 18 months of treatment in the patients taking Vioxx compared to those taking placebo,” Merck said in a press release.

It seems that that increased relative risk is something like 50%. So I’m trying to figure out does that mean that if I had a 1 in 100 chance of having a heart attack or stroke before taking Vioxx do I now have a 1 in 50 chance or something lesser or greater? Because I only took the drug for a couple of weeks does this not pertain to me at all?

They were also in tests over whether or not this drug could prevent reoccurrance of cancerous polyps. I think I would prefer to have a greater risk of a heart attack than have a reoccurance of cancerous polyps. I’ve had close friends suffer and pass on from colon cancer. There ordeal was not anything I’d ever wish on anyone.