My mother died from a combination of metformin and colchicine. She had renal insufficiency, the FDA had warned not to prescribe metformin to people with renal i

My mother died from a combination of metformin and colchicine. She had renal insufficiency, the FDA had warned not to prescribe metformin to people with renal insufficiency, and it made her kidneys worse. She had been taking daily low dose colchicine for gout, but the worsened kidney function caused a poisonous level of colchicine to build up. She vomited so much, she lost a too much electrolytes and ended up in the hospital delirious. The hospital thought it was a stroke and tested for that, eventually ruling it out, but the time wasted on thinking it was a stroke, obscured a growing instability in her kidneys, liver, thanks to the insufficiency, colchicine, and bad electrolyte levels. When they infused electrolytes, it swung the pendulum too far in the other direction, and she suffered wild swings in blood levels of potassium, etc. Eventually her kidneys and liver failed at the same time, multiple organ failure, usually for someone in their 60s is not survival. I watched her die slowly over a few days as everything came crashing down. Afterwards, I tried to get the hospital to conduct an autopsy to show overdose of colchicine levels, but the pathology department somehow "wasn't set up for that" and they said I'd have to send her body to some specialist lab. I didn't want to cause anymore pain with the family, so I opted to just bury her. But I definitely see this as medical malpractice. And it's a clear warning to not ignore FDA contraindication warnings, even if your doctor apparently doesn't read up on the latest research or alerts.