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Non-Opioid alternative Limbrel recalled, patients and doctors confounded

It’s rare that a miracle drug lives up to the name, but for many patients non-opioid alternative Limbrel does. Colonel Hall spent nearly 30 years in the Marines. Up until just a few years ago, he suffered from arthritis, had two knee surgeries, and had been left with “debilitating knee, back and neck pain.” He wasn’t interested in being prescribed opioids though, he flat out refused to take them. When knee and back injections didn’t work, he was facing a third knee surgery. His doctor recommended Limbrel.

For retired Marine Corps Colonel Wade Hall, Limbrel has meant being able to do things with his family he didn’t think possible years ago. In just a month’s time taking the drug Colonel Hall’s knees, neck, and back “just started feeling better”. A man that was unable to wrestle with his grandkids before taking the drug, was now jogging up the stairs of his home.

Limbrel is a non-opioid alternative that’s been prescribed for more than a dozen years. It’s classified as a food medicine as it’s made of plant sources called "flavonoids”. There have been no deaths reported from its use, and fewer than 200 “adverse events”. That hasn’t stopped the FDA from applying pressure to Limbrel though, and the drug Colonel Hall and so many others rely on is now unavailable. For its part, the FDA says the drug has been recalled as it investigates Limbrel’s link to “liver injuries”. What’s strange though is that a common drug like Tylenol is still readily available, despite the fact that taking the over the counter drug has been linked to acute liver failure. Tylenol users have reported more than 15,000 complaints, and “more than 1,300 deaths have been filed with the FDA…” due to its use.

Patients and doctors have been left searching for answers. Mark Ford, a Physician assistant at an Orthopedic Specialty Clinic, believes Limbrel is “one of the safest products that we have available, it dramatically improved people's quality [of] life…” For Colonel Hall, Limbrel being off the market means he’s now suffering from the same pain that plagued him just a few years ago. Pain that he thought was gone for good. Doctors are fighting for Colonel Hall and other patients though, as they’ve banded together and taken their case to the U.S. food and Drug Administration asking that the non-opioid alternative be reinstated.

To learn more about the controversial recall decision by the FDA, follow this link: https://bit.ly/2xvNIHo