If you take Excedrin to relieve migraine pain, you’ve probably noticed that it’s not around much anymore. Since a recall of the drug in January of 2012, it’s been mostly off the shelves, leaving people who use the popular headache medicine in the lurch as far as finding their preferred analgesic is concerned.

The Recall

Excedrin is manufactured by Novartis. The company took certain packages of Excedrin, Bufferin, Gas-X and NoDoz off the shelves voluntarily in January. Some of these packages had pills in them from other medications and some of the packages contained broken pills. The company took the lines off of the shelves, which included expiration dates of 12/20/2014 for Excedrin.

For a medication that’s freely available at most drug stores, the lack of Excedrin has caused some issues for people who depend upon it. According to ABC news, people are actually going to online auctions to purchase the medication. This is not advised, of course, as there is no regulation in place and the medications cannot be guaranteed to be what they claim to be.

The Huffington Post reported that there were no injuries related to the recall action. The pills were mixed, so there was the potential that someone would get a medication that was not appropriate for them in a bottle that they believed contained something else.

Drug Recalls

Recalled pharmaceutical drugs are sometimes recalled due to simple quality control issues, as the broken and cracked pills in some Novartis lines demonstrates. Mixing different medications together, of course, is very dangerous, as people sometimes have adverse and deadly reactions to specific medications and, if they were to take such a medication unknowingly, the consequences could be dire.

In cases where people end up suffering severe injuries or financial losses—or both—due to recalled pharmaceutical drugs, contacting a lawyer may be appropriate. Attorneys can go after companies that put unsafe products out on the market and make sure that your family has an opportunity to get back any losses you’ve suffered. You may or may not win your claim and, before you speak with an attorney, there’s no way to know if you even have a legitimate one.

Pharmaceutical drugs are only one type of recalled health product. Supplements, herbal remedies and other products are sometimes recalled from the market because of quality control issues or because they pose a genuine threat.  Recalled Drug Attorneys can help with such instances, as well.