Woman blames Yasmin for damaging her gallbladder
May 25th, 2010 by Jennifer Walker-Journey
Kathy Perea will not forget the pain she suffered when her gallbladder began to fail. “It was horrible,” the 27-year-old mother of five told KTNV-TV. “I was throwing up so much that the vessels in my eyes were bursting because I was straining myself so bad.”
Kathy says the attacks began shortly after she started taking the Yasmin birth control pill. “I would wake up in the middle of the night and it would feel like someone had hit me with a baseball bat in my rib,” she said. So she stopped taking the pill. Her symptoms did not go away. That’s when her doctor told her the damage had already been done. Her gallbladder was damaged and had to be removed.
Yasmin, also known by the brand name Yaz and the generic Ocella, is one of the top selling birth control pills in the country. It is the only one that combines a hormone with a diuretic. While Bayer HealthCare, the maker of Yasmin, says the pill carries the same risks as other birth control pills, women like Kathy say they believe Yasmin is more dangerous and that they were not adequately warned by the drug company of the serious side effects that could occur with taking the once-daily pill.
To date, Bayer faces more than 1,100 lawsuits from women who allege they were harmed by the drugs. Many claim to have suffered damage to their gallbladder. Others claim the pills caused them to develop life-threatening blood clots and other serious medical conditions.
Though Kathy is feeling better she says she still suffers from occasional pain after eating. She blames Yasmin for threatening her life, and she wants justice. “I have five kids I have to support financially and I had to miss days of work. I had to have surgery,” Kathy said through tears. “That’s money coming out of my pocket for something they didn’t tell me was going to happen to me.”
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