Vivitrol Warnings
The Food and Drug Administration has released a warning about injection site reactions from Alkermes, Inc.’s drug Vivitrol, known generically as naltrexone. Vivitrol has been approved by the FDA since 2006 for the treatment of serious alcohol addiction. It is administered as an injection into a buttock monthly.
Serious injection site reactions associated with Vivitrol include abscesses, cellulitis, indurations, hemotomas, and necrosis. Sixteen of the nearly 200 reported injection site reactions required surgery to fix.
If you or loved one are receiving Vivitrol injections, you should consider the following:
• Though pain, swelling, bruising, pruritus and redness at the injection site are not uncommon, anyone who experiences these symptoms for more than two weeks after the medication is administered should be referred to a surgeon.
• Vivitrol should be administered into the gluteus muscle, alternating buttocks. Risks increase when Vivitrol is injected into fatty tissue.
• Vivitrol uses a special 1-1/2 inch long needle. No other needle should be used.
• Because of the limited needle length and the necessity to inject Vivitrol into muscular tissue, patients who have thicker gluteal fat (such as women) may be physiologically at risk of developing injection site reactions.
If you have any adverse symptoms to a Vivitrol injection that last more than a couple of weeks, contact your doctor.