A few days ago it was announced that Acomplia will not be approved by the FDA for prescription in the United States.  Apparently the advisory committee which reports to the FDA received information concerning the safety of Acomplia which influenced its unanimous decision not to recommend the treatment.

The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use will meet this week and it is most likely that Acomplia will be on the agenda for discussion.  We believe that it is highly unlikely that the EMA will decide to withdraw Acomplia from the market in Europe but there may be a change to labelling, giving greater prominence to the possible psychiatric side effects:  It has been suggested that patients taking Acomplia have had suicidal thoughts and this was one of the factors which influenced the FDA committee.

We have written thousands of prescriptions for Acomplia since it was launched almost a year ago and we obviously review each patient’s experiences.  It has to be said that most people seem to be taking this medication without any side effects whatsoever.  A few people have mentioned that they have a feeling of nausea for a few hours after they take the medication and some have noticed mood swings.  We have had to take two patients off the medication because they were suffering what we thought was likely to be depression and one woman admitted herself to hospital after suffering a very unfortunate conglomeration of recognised side effects.  This was obviously an extreme example of what can happen but it was terrifying for the patient involved.

Those who have suffered side effects such as depression seem to get back to normal within around two weeks of ceasing treatment.  If you have any stories of your experience with Acomplia, we would like to hear about them.