Any action that you take after a drug or medical device leaves you injured should be designed to lessen your pain, improve your prognosis, get you back to your regular life as quickly as possible, or reduce your stress. To that end, we encourage you to:
- See your doctor. You may be understandably hesitant to get further medical attention. However, your injury may not be your doctor’s fault and you may need your doctor’s help to recover. A doctor can help determine if your symptoms are related a particular drug or medical device, a doctor can change your medication or medical device to one that does not cause you harm, and a doctor can determine what treatment you need to recover from your injuries.
- Make plans for immediate future. Think about how you are going to take care of yourself, how you are going to get better physically, and what you are going to do with your time if you cannot go about your normal activities.
- Record information about your drug regimen. Keep notes about how you used the drug and your reaction. Write down your dosage, the drug’s expiration date, how many times a day you have been taking the drug and the pharmacy you bought it from—or which doctor gave you samples. Your notes may also include information about other medications or supplements you took, when you noticed symptoms of the reaction, details of the reaction, details of your pain or discomfort, and any attempts you made to get treatment or resolve your injuries.
- Do your research. In addition to asking your doctor if he or she has heard about any adverse reactions caused by the prescription medication, take a look at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website to see if the agency has issued any warnings about the drug.
- Call a pharmaceutical class action lawyer. Others may have suffered injuries like yours, and you may be able to join in a class action lawsuit to get the recovery that you deserve with little effort on your part. Class actions are different than typical personal injury cases, and involve different types of deadlines, documents, and protocol. Hiring an attorney who is familiar with the class action lawsuit process will not only help your case run smoothly, but it could eventually make a difference in the monetary outcome of your case.
Taking these steps does not have to further disrupt your life. Instead, it should help make things easier. For more tips about protecting your rights after a pharmaceutical injury, please start a live chat with us to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation. Do not waste one more day wondering about what you can do. Instead, take the necessary steps to protect yourself now.