Thoughts from a Lab Rat

I’ve touched on this subject before but it’s something that never grows old. While in a study, you are required to report any adverse events you experience. This can be as simple as a headache or as serious as feeling like you’re going to pass out. Anytime you feel anything but normal, you need to contact the on duty paramedic or approximately trained staff. You will not get in trouble for reporting adverse events. In fact, that is one of the major purposes of conducting a clinical trial. You see those TV commercials all day long and somewhere the announcer will rattle off a list of side-effects. Those side-effects are discovered by us! So, it is very important to tell the staff right when they start and when they end. Also, it is important that you do not discuss how your feeling with other subjects. Though it may seem that side-effects maybe bad, consider that many drugs developed for one purpose can be used for other purposes based on the side-effects. A drug that causes drowsiness may be prescribed as a sleep aid. A well known erectile dysfunction drug was originally developed to treat high blood pressure. So, don’t be afraid to report your adverse events. The study doctor will determine whether the adverse event is caused by the study drug or not.

The most important aspect of participating in a clinical research study is to record the side-effects of a drug. You see the commercials all the time and somewhere they always have the known side-effects. That information comes from us. Clinical research volunteers. It is up to us to make sure that we are reporting all of our side-effects and that we are only reporting side-effects that we actually have.