Episode of severe cold: attention to drug intake!

The French Agency for the Safety of Health Products AFSSAPS has posted a document entitled "You and your treatment for a cold episode", which summarizes the precautions to be taken for the proper use and storage of medicines If cold episode.

Specifying in particular the risks in case of a cold snap, AFSSAPS notes that while in France, hypothermia or frostbite occur that "exceptionally" low temperatures can be at the origin of a worsening pre-existing chronic disease (cardiovascular and respiratory diseases).

Are also listed various situations limiting "the ability of the body to regulate its temperature." Thus, the elderly, infants, people with heart or respiratory ailment, asthma, hypothyroidism or neuropsychiatric disease may "bear harder cold outside", while workers outdoor therein particularly exposed. In addition, consumption of alcohol, which aggravates hypothermia must be avoided.

As some medicines can affect the mechanisms of thermal regulation of the body, AFSSAPS therefore discourages people "at risk" to consume drugs without medical advice, "even when they are sold without a prescription." It also invites them to go see their doctor if the "medical care is not provided regularly, especially when the last visit was several months ago" and to seek advice from their doctor or pharmacist.

Drugs that "require increased vigilance" during an episode of extreme cold include for example some treatments for cardiovascular disease. Indeed, when it is cold, the blood circulation to the skin surface is reduced to help maintain a sufficient temperature to the internal organs, is what is called the "skin vasoconstriction" but some antihypertensives and vasodilators limit the amplitude of this adaptation mechanism.

The drugs used in the treatment of hypothyroidism prevent meanwhile increased metabolism necessary for the production of heat used to maintain body temperature at 37 ° C despite lower external temperature.

Some drugs acting on the central nervous system (neuroleptics, barbiturates, benzodiazepines), are also likely to aggravate hypothermia, some because they disrupt the central thermoregulation, for others because affecting alertness, they can impair the ability to fight against the cold.

Finally, the profile of efficacy or safety of certain products may be modified by physiological changes caused by the cold. Thus, certain anti-seizure will be less well distributed in the body, lithium salts can be toxic if their elimination decreases, while the reduction of blood flow impedes the availability of active patches and medications administered subcutaneously, for example.

However, "in most cases, medication is not by itself a risk, especially if used well," said AFSSAPS, which states that under no circumstances a patient can not decide it himself to interrupt his treatment, failing to expose "complications or related crash drugs or related to [his] disease that is not treated."

Only a doctor can rehabilitate treatment if deemed necessary, without this change is systematic, in view of all risk factors (drug treatment already in place, pathology involved, age of the patient ...) insists Agency.