Duloxetine Case Study

In phase one of the trial, Sharma et al. (2000) attempted to find a stabilized dosage of duloxetine the would be appropriate. This trial consisted of 12 men, between ages 22 to 53 years old, weighing between 61.7 to 88.9 kilograms, and they were also roughly around 160 to 188 centimeters tall. While these men were participating in this study, they were not allowed to take in any medication other than what was being studied. Before the patients started this trial they all had to provide a written consent form. This study was a single blind test with a group in placebo and another testing the drugs. Four men were randomly selected to be placed in the placebo and the remaining eight were taking duloxetine. (p. 161-162).
While conducting this trial, Sharma et al. (2000) divided up the time frame into three weeks and each week of the trial the amount of dosage would increase, they spent a total of only 20.5 days to conduct this trial. The medication was administered to the men were given in two doses, one dose in the morning one hour before breakfast, seven in the morning, and one hour after
Something that Sharma et al. (2000) found was that the taking duloxetine did not cause significant changes to blood pressure or heart rate, but that is did cause an increase in systolic and diastolic increase in blood pressure. The increase of systolic was less than or equal to 9 mmHg and as for diastolic it was less than or equal to 5 mmHg. In this study they also found that the patient's heart rate did decrease by about 6 beats per minute when taking duloxetine and if they were to suddenly not taking duloxetine anymore it would also causes an increase in the patient’s heart rate by about 12 beats per minute and they also experience sleep disturbances, but that is not it, patients experience side effects of the medication as well (p.161 &