So many questions...
It wasn't prescribed to me, and that person is gone now. But the whole development of events forced me into extensively reading on how stuff works, and it was then that I said farewell to human-made drugs. Nowadays I go to the doctor just to get the blood test done once or twice a year...
So, diclofenac blocks the proper functiong of the COX enzyme in our body. That's all it does. It doesn't cure anything, it doesn't repair anything... And we don't exactly know all of COX's functions, but we do know that it's closely tied to at least 4 other 'subsystems' in our body, about which, again we know very little about.
All things considered, I really see no reason to ever take diclofenac. Why would I want to block tiny delicate mechanisms in my body I don't understand in the first place? The doctors only prescribe them because that's all they can do for you. They don't have a magic wand. But they know very well diclofenac will fix nothing. It will most likely temporarily 'mask' the symptoms, and the body will repair itself, which would of done anyway without the diclofenac. Every living organism has some kind of self-repairing capability.
My conclusion is that diclofenac won't cause, say thrombocytopenia, to 5000, maybe 10000 people, but then there will be one who will get it. Same with blood sugar. There's at least one person on this planet whose body will react to diclofenac in a way that his/her sugar will be elevated.
Thanks for the comment NT77. 'Donot worry about anything' refers to answer that diclofenac raising blood sugar,which is not happening.Also mentioned to start off Diclo in lower doses (25-75 mg) where as therapeutic dosage value being 75-150mg.
If Diclofenac was prescribed by your Doctor ,then I think you can reassure yourself if you should be on that drug or not.But if you are self medicating (Diclo being OTC in many countries,not in US),I think you should reconsider the reason why you need to take that medication.
Problems such as TCP and other serious GI problems may arise on long term therapy (If so,why would someone take Diclo for three months,didn't the doctors looked into this issue while prescribing it for whole three months,where effective analgesic medications are superior over Diclo are avaialble). What does that mean?Self medication or misuse of Pain Killers,or wrong Prescription for a wrong guy,mis correlation to history and wrong diagnosis?
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with the "don't worry about anything" part.
For one, depending on the dosage, it can seriously impair body's ability to produce a layer that protects the stomach from it's own acid. The only currently known way around it is to inhibit the proton pump with another drug, but that in turn shuts down immune system's first line od defence against all ingested viruses and bacteria, forcing other parts of the immune system to work that much harder...
Not that long ago I witnessed how everyday diclofenac use (cca 100mg daily) for three months, led to severe thrombocytopenia that required 3 platelet transfusions. And blood transfusions are not harmless as people may think. In order to put other people's blood into you, they have to seriously weaken your entire immune system first, otherwise it would immediatelly attack foreign substance. Barely working immune system is a very dangerous situation to be in.
No meddling with the body's biochemistry comes without a price.
Diclofenac has no such property of raising blood sugar.Though it may be contraindicated in patients with DM with renal impairment and Lipid regulating drugs like-Colestyramine appears substantially to reduce the bioavailability of diclofenac when the two drugs are given together.The effects of cholestyramine and colestipol on the absorption of diclofenac in man.Colestipol produces a similar but smaller effect.
Though some information charts say that it should be used with caution in patients with Diabetes,it refers to underlying conditions as renal failure, hepatic impairment,IBS,stroke,clotting problems,asthma, allergies, CD/colitis,HTN,smoking,High LDL/HDL etc are present in your history.
So donot worry about anything.You can take the drug safely in lower doses to start with.
Also refer to page-http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/304247 which talks about a case study.
I think it shouldn't, but am not 100% sure.
Corticosteroids (dexamethasone, medrol, etc.) do that, and they do it substantially.