Did I say New Facebook Drug Side Effect Group?

Did I say New Facebook Drug Side Effect Group?….Sorry, I meant a new FDA “side effect” system website.

How big is the internet? A quick google search states there are upwards of 1.8 billion websites. In other words, you get the picture, it’s huge!! All of that data on the internet includes information posted on various websites about medications used in medicine including psychiatry. Some of these sites provide good information, some not so much.

Today I have great news on a resource your providers at Pondworks can use to understand medication side effects that could affect 

Facebook and Drug Side Effects your care. The website goes by the name FAERS or FDA Adverse Event Reporting System. At Pondworks we use FDA information to guide our decision making and sites like FAERS provide us with useful information. FAERS is also accessible to you, but get some help when trying to understand all the numbers you will see on the screen. If you want to take a try at it, there is a FAERS Tutorial you can go through that helps understand how the dashboard works and the limitations of the system. Looking at the data provided by other people taking the medication (consumers) is a good way to compare typical experiences.

Here are a few tips and warnings for looking at FAERS:

First off, FAERS can’t tell you how frequently a particular side effect occurs compared to all the people in the U.S. who are taking take the medication. This is a limitation of the current system and should be working better as time goes on.

• FAERS data comes from anyone (healthcare providers, consumers, etc…) who enters a report.
• FAERS reports have no way to make sure how many other medications or other factors might have occurred at the same time as the reported side effect. That means it isn’t possible to say the reported medicine caused the side effect.
• FAERS can give you a sense if anyone else has reported a side effect you might be concerned about.
• FAERS is a great way to team up with your Pondworks in Austin, but it’s not a substitute for Pondworks or your provider’s clinical experience.

If you’d like more information on how this website or the FAERS website can help you, reach out to us here or the contact page.

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Pondworks Psychiatry & Psychotherapy