Guide To The Causes And Risk Factors For Stevens-Johnson Syndrome

Pain Medication

Stevens-Johnson syndrome involves blistering all over the patient's body. It can be incredibly painful for the patient. Often, this condition can be caused by a patient's use of over-the-counter pain medications. This includes the most common pain medications, such as acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and naproxen sodium. It also includes highly prescribed medications like meloxicam.

Once again, researchers cannot conclusively state why Stevens-Johnson syndrome is triggered by taking specific pain medications. However, as with other drugs that cause this condition, they theorize that these adverse reactions happen due to the drugs' metabolites left in the body. Anyone using pain medication should be aware of this increased risk and watch for early signs of an adverse reaction.

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Liver Injury And Hepatitis A

Hepatitis A is sometimes seen in patients with Stevens-Johnson syndrome. Liver injury often occurs in patients who rely too heavily or too often on relief from acetaminophen. Stevens-Johnson syndrome raises liver enzymes in over thirty percent of patients. A full ten percent of those will develop an overt hepatitis infection as well.

Many researchers believe that the connection between Stevens-Johnson syndrome and liver diseases, such as hepatitis A and other types of hepatitis, comes from using certain medications. Therefore, one medicine can be responsible for both this syndrome and the complicating factor of hepatitis. Hepatitis is often discovered in patients in the course of treatment. Drug-induced liver injury combined with Stevens-Johnson syndrome results in significantly higher mortality rates in these patients.

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