Learn About Allopurinol

Precautions

You need to take precautions with this medication. Your doctor helps make sure it's a safe choice by going over your medical history. Mention things like a history of kidney or liver disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Congestive heart failure matters quite a lot too. All of these mean allopurinol isn't safe for you to take! Your doctor also needs to know when you're getting chemo, are pregnant, or are breastfeeding. Doses or alternate medications are considered for these cases. Ladies, you have to avoid driving since this medication makes your reaction time slower.

You have to be careful of bleeding when you take this medication. It's because this medicine means you have a lower white blood cell count sometimes! Your doctor will help you handle this with regular appointments and blood tests. The good news, you can drink water to lower your risk of this medication causing kidney stones. Aim for 64 to 80 ounces overall each day. You even have the choice to take it with or without food much of the time!

Medication Interactions

It's time to list all of the medications you take. Make sure you have prescriptions, OTC drugs, and supplements on this list. Ladies, your list is going to help your doctor avoid more than 50 medication interactions with allopurinol. There are about 16 major interactions here.

This medication interacts with antibiotics, like amoxicillin. Interactions happen with blood thinners, chemo drugs, diuretics, and immunosuppressants too! Talk about all of these with your doctor first. You will need a dose adjustment, at least. Switching to other meds is also an option! You need caution when you take other medications for gout too, so talk with your doctor.