Well the fun never ends around here. My husband has been having a rough time for the last couple of weeks with all these side effects (extreme fatigue, shortness of breath loss of appetite, bad taste in mouth) and I did some research on all the drugs he is taking and found out that the Melanoma Drug, Zelboraf and the drug our Doctor at Moffitt prescribed for the thrush in his mouth, Fluconazole is a Level 1 contraindication, which means when these two drugs are combined it can have severe side effects up to and including life threatening.
Needless to say I called the specialty pharmacy where the Zelboraf is dispensed and talked to a Pharmacist and she verified that it is a “BIG NO NO” to take these drugs together. We get the Zelboraf from a Specialty Drug Department and all our other prescriptions are filled at our local pharmacy and I “assumed” they were both connected and if any drugs should not be taken together they would let us know. Well the two departments computer systems of the same Pharmacy are not integrated. Who would have thought?
I have called Moffitt and talked to the head nurse who was very vague in her responses to me and said she would talk to the Oncologist when she was back in tomorrow. The Pharmacist had told me it will take about a week to 10 days to get all the Fluconazole out of his system but he should see many of his side effects cease when it is out of his system.
I just cannot believe that our Oncologist prescribed this medicine for the thrush in his mouth when there is such an interaction with the Zelboraf. I can’t wait to hear her explanation.
My lesson learned in this is that I must be completely on top of everything that is going on with him and not just take things for granted – Do your research and ask a lot of questions. I thought I was but I never saw this one coming.
I just hate that he has had to go through all this for someone’s lack of knowledge or error.
