Amaryl M SR Overdosage

Glimepiride: Signs and Symptoms: Acute overdosage as well as long-term treatment with too high a dose of glimepiride may lead to severe life-threatening hypoglycaemia.
Management: As soon as an overdose of glimepiride has been discovered, a physician must be notified without delay. The patient must immediately take sugar, if possible in the form of glucose, unless a physician has already undertaken responsibility for treating the overdose.
Careful monitoring is essential until the physician is confident that the patient is out of danger. It must be remembered that hypoglycaemia may recur after initial recovery.
Admission to hospital may sometimes be necessary even as a precautionary measure.
In particular, significant overdoses and severe reactions with signs such as loss of consciousness or other serious neurological disorders are medical emergencies and require immediate treatment and admission to hospital.
If, for example, the patient is unconscious, an intravenous injection of concentrated glucose solution is indicated (for adults starting with 40 ml of 20% solution, for example). Alternatively in adults, administration of glucagon, e.g. in doses of 0.5 to 1 mg i.v., s.c. or i.m., may be considered.
In particular, when treating hypoglycaemia due to accidental intake of glimepiride in infants and young children, the dose of glucose given must be very carefully adjusted in view of the possibility of producing dangerous hyperglycaemia, and must be controlled by close monitoring of blood glucose.
Patients who have ingested life-threatening amounts of glimepiride require detoxification (e.g. by gastric lavage and medicinal charcoal).
After acute glucose replacement has been completed, it is usually necessary to give an intravenous glucose infusion in lower concentration so as to ensure that the hypoglycaemia does not recur. The patient's blood glucose level should be carefully monitored for at least 24 hours. In severe cases with a protracted course, hypoglycaemia, or the danger of slipping back into hypoglycaemia, may persist for several days.
Metformin: Hypoglycaemia has not been seen with metformin doses of up to 85 g, although lactic acidosis has occurred in such circumstances. High overdose or concomitant risks of metformin may lead to lactic acidosis. Lactic acidosis is a medical emergency and must be treated in hospital. The most effective method to remove lactate and metformin is haemodialysis.
Pancreatitis may occur in the context of a metformin overdose.