Actos (Generic)

ACTOS (Pioglitazone) is a once-a-day prescription pill for type 2 diabetes that along with healthy eating and physical activity helps your body more effectively use its own natural insulin or the insulin you take. When your necessary efforts at healthy eating and physical activity alone do not control your blood glucose levels, pioglitazone can be used by itself or in combination with certain other diabetes pills (sulfonylureas, metformin) or insulin to lower blood glucose.

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Uses

Pioglitazone is used for the treatment of type 2 diabetes along with a healthy diabetic diet, regular exercise, weight control, smoking reduction, and careful monitoring of blood glucose.

Pioglitazone may be used alone or in combination with metformin, a drug in a different class of anti-diabetic drugs, that also lowers blood glucose.

Pioglitazone is approved for treating type 2 diabetes in combination with insulin as well as another class of anti-diabetic drugs, the sulfonylureas.

How to take

Pioglitazone is taken once daily in doses of 15, 30 or 45 mg. Take once daily at any time, with or without meals.

Side effects

As with any medicine, there are possible side effects with pioglitazone hydrochloride. However, not everyone who takes this drug will experience side effects. In fact, most people tolerate the medicine well. When pioglitazone side effects do occur, they are generally minor and either require no treatment or can easily be treated by you or your healthcare provider.
Pioglitazone has been studied thoroughly in clinical trials where side effects seen with a group of people taking the drug are documented and compared to another group not taking the medicine.
As a result, it is possible to see what side effects occur, how often they appear, and how they compare to the group not taking the medicine.

Based on these studies, the most common side effects of pioglitazone include:

·1 Upper respiratory infections (similar to the common cold) -- in up to 13.2 percent of people
·2 Headache -- up to 9.1 percent
·3 Sinus infection or sinus irritation -- up to 6.3 percent
·4 Muscle pain -- up to 5.4 percent
·5 Tooth problems -- up to 5.3 percent
·6 Sore throat -- up to 5.1 percent
·7 Swelling or water weight gain (edema) -- up to 4.8 percent

Precaution

Do not stop using this medicine or other diabetes medicine without first checking with your doctor.

Check with your doctor before adjusting the dose of your diabetes medicine or changing your diet.

If you are taking this medicine with other diabetes medicine, you are at an increased risk of becoming hypoglycemic (low blood sugar).Discuss with your doctor or nurse how to handle hypoglycemic reactions.

Keep all doctor and laboratory appointments while you are using this medicine. Laboratory and/or medical tests such as liver function tests and HBA1C blood levels may be done to monitor your progress or to check for side effects.

Before you have any medical or dental treatments, emergency care, or surgery, tell the doctor or dentist that you are using this medicine.

Before you start taking any new medicine, either prescription or over-the-counter, check with your doctor or pharmacist. For women taking birth control pills: this medicine may decrease the effectiveness of your birth control pill. To prevent pregnancy, use an additional form of birth control.

For women: this medicine may increase your chance of pregnancy by causing ovulation to resume in premenopausal women who have not been ovulating. If you plan on becoming pregnant, discuss with your doctor the benefits and risks of using this medicine during pregnancy.

Drug interactions

Pioglitazone hydrochloride can potentially interact with several medicines. Some of the medicines that can lead to pioglitazone drug interactions include:
· Atazanavir (Reyataz®)
· Atorvastatin (Lipitor®)
· Certain seizure medications, including
· Carbamazepine (Tegretol®)
· Fosphenytoin (Cerebyx®)
· Phenobarbital (Luminal®)
· Phenytoin (Dilantin®)
· Primidone (Mysoline®)
· Gemfibrozil (Lopid®)
· Ketoconazole (Nizoral®)
· Midazolam (Versed®)
· Nifedipine (Adalat®, Procardia®)
· Oral contraceptives
· Rifampin (Rifadin®) or rifapentine (Priftin®)
· Ritonavir (Norvir®).

Missed dose

If a dose is missed on one day, do not take an extra dose the next day to make up for the missed dose.

Storage

Store this medicine at room temperature between 15-30 degrees C (59-86 degrees F).