Have you ever had a weird drug reaction?

[Yeoman Randi]

Jan, omg, that is really awful!

Here's an interesting story. Well, maybe:

My parents had moved to Florida. One time i took the daughter with me for a visit. The daughter had migraines (still does) so I put her asprins in one of those day by day pill holder thingies.

I'm on Paxil, so i put my pills in another one of those thingies.

Everyday while we were at my parents i took my little pill. And for some reason i was getting more and more depressed. By the fourth day i was like, beyond depressed. I mean, seriously, i was BAD.

Suddenly it dawned on me. I had been taking her asprin instead of my paxil!

Thankfully the daughter never had a headache otherwise who knows, i might have given her my paxil!

Not a weird drug reaction. Just another case of stupiditis.

 

[AstroSmurf]

Right now I am taking atenolol to control my blood pressure. After trying several different things, we found that it is really the only thing I can take for it that actually works. (Everything else just bounced off with little or no effect.) However, this crap causes me to break out in a rash if I eat anything acidic. For example, I can have two tablespoons of marinara sauce and be covered in a red blister rash by the next day. You don't even want to know what an orange or a grapefruit will do to me. And this rash is itchy, burns and causes my skin to flake off. But the worst part, it always appears across my forehead first. I also get it on my chest, under my arms, on my lower back and on the insides of my thighs. So I have two choices, take the meds and get a rash or not take them and have a stroke.

I also have a few other weird reactions to medications. I can't take opiates. They cause me to hallucinate. I also have blackouts, memory loss and violent vomiting. Most pain killers do not work on me at all. I have survived migraines, kidney stones, bone breaks and dental procedures without anything to take the edge off. And speaking of dental procedures, my body doesn't respond to numbing agents. You can pump me full of the stuff and it barely does anything. So every tooth I have ever had work done on was totally live. And let me tell you, there is a reason why drilling teeth is an effective means of torture. (And after that last visit to the dentist I decided that next time I am going to one of those places that puts you to sleep. I have endured twenty years of this I have had enough.) I also can't take aspirin because it causes me to have an asthma attack.

And Kestra, I have been on more than a few anxiety meds over the years and I hate them all. They either do nothing or make me feel weird. The worst was Paxil. When I would walk, it felt like I had bolts of electricity running down my legs. It was horrible! I was on something else a couple of years ago (I can't remember the name) but it caused my vision to trail.

 

[sidious618]

I hallucinated my own death and the autopsy afterwards when I took a new medicine for bipolar called Geoden. Suffice to say I did not take it again the next day.

 

[John Picard]

Hydrocodone makes me sick, sick, sick. I've also developed a reaction to the dye used for CT-Scans (constricted throat) and must be pre-medicated.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

If you count the fact that whenever I used to try and take a cold medicine, it would just make me sick (sicker than the cold would have), then yeah, I've had a drug reaction. But no actual weird side effects. Just general down in the dumps BLAH.

 

[Yeoman Randi]

I hallucinated my own death and the autopsy afterwards when I took a new medicine for bipolar called Geoden. Suffice to say I did not take it again the next day.

Holy shit! Now THAT is scary!!!!!

John Picard, i wish hydrocodone made me sick.

That CT Scan dye is bizarre. One of the 'normal' reactions is that you feel like you've just wet your pants, even though you haven't. I mean, seriously, wtf is that? Why would it make you feel like you wet your pants? Totally bizarro.

 

[John Picard]

I hallucinated my own death and the autopsy afterwards when I took a new medicine for bipolar called Geoden. Suffice to say I did not take it again the next day.

Holy shit! Now THAT is scary!!!!!

John Picard, i wish hydrocodone made me sick.

That CT Scan dye is bizarre. One of the 'normal' reactions is that you feel like you've just wet your pants, even though you haven't. I mean, seriously, wtf is that? Why would it make you feel like you wet your pants? Totally bizarro.

Yes, it's an odd burning sensation that makes one's bowels and bladder wish to release. The metallic taste on the tongue doesn't help, either.

 

[T'Baio]

That CT Scan dye is bizarre.

Edits - whoops, misunderstood there.

The dye makes you feel warm, or possibly that you've wet the bed, because it's an immune response that releases histamines into your system. This causes fluid to escape into your tissues, making them feel warm or wet. Kind of like an allergy, in a way. They should be able to give you antihistamines if this reaction is too strong for you.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

I've been on a ton of drugs, but the only weird reaction I ever remember was when I was a teenager I was prescribed Halodol. The first night I took it I had these really weird dreams where I thought I had counted to infinity and felt I could see the entire universe. When I woke up I had this sensation that my brain was hooked up to wires and someone was feeding it electricity. I was so physically worked up that I starting cleaning everything. About an hour later I crashed and went back to sleep for like half a day. I didn't take it again.

 

[Chris3123]

Prozac (the first drug I ever took for my... problems) really frakked me up when I took it. I was 12 at the time. It made me very zombie like. That's what I've been told, anyway. My memory of those first few years of medication isn't the best.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

I had a lot of bad experiences with anti-depressants before I found one that works relatively well for me, with little side-effects. The other ones often made me very lethargic and even after a few weeks, that didn't go away.

I had much the same reaction. Unfortunately, my Dr. took it to be worsening depression and kept upping the dose. It finally got to where I couldn't leave the house and when I ran out of meds, I came back to myself withing three days. I don't think I'll *ever* allow myself to be put on anti-depressants again after that. I pretty much lost a year and a half of my life to them.

I also have an odd reaction to the more common general anaesthesia drugs. The enzyme in the blood that breaks it down so you wake up--basically I don't have any. I woke up from a short outpatient proceedure 10 hours late. Now I carry a note from that doctor with my driver's license.

Jan

The scariest thing I ever read was stories about people who aren't knocked unconscious from general anesthesia. It still paralyzes them so they can't move or communicate in any way, but they are wide awake and feel and experience everything. Needless to say a lot of them suffered from post-traumatic stress.

 

[Jan]

I also have an odd reaction to the more common general anaesthesia drugs. The enzyme in the blood that breaks it down so you wake up--basically I don't have any. I woke up from a short outpatient proceedure 10 hours late. Now I carry a note from that doctor with my driver's license.

Jan

The scariest thing I ever read was stories about people who aren't knocked unconscious from general anesthesia. It still paralyzes them so they can't move or communicate in any way, but they are wide awake and feel and experience everything. Needless to say a lot of them suffered from post-traumatic stress.

Thankfully I've never experienced pain at all. I was intensely glad to find out what the problem was, though, because every time I would wake up with that respirator tube down my throat and I'd choke and struggle until somebody noticed I was awake. That last time, the anaesthesiologist was right there so it was less traumatic. That was one medical bill I didn't mind paying, and it was a doozy, since he stayed with me most of that day.

Jan

 

[RJDiogenes]

The first time I had a kidney stone, they gave me Percocet for the post-op pain, and it had a really bad effect on me. I was agitated, anxious and couldn't sleep. I wanted to go out for a walk, but I was afraid to leave the house-- I kept thinking that somebody would break in or the place would burn down while I was gone. Basically, it turned me into my Mother.

Ever since then, whenever I've needed pain meds for a kidney stone or oral surgery, I've gotten Demerol or Vicodin. Those are pretty sweet.

 

[Kestra]

I had a lot of bad experiences with anti-depressants before I found one that works relatively well for me, with little side-effects. The other ones often made me very lethargic and even after a few weeks, that didn't go away.

I had much the same reaction. Unfortunately, my Dr. took it to be worsening depression and kept upping the dose. It finally got to where I couldn't leave the house and when I ran out of meds, I came back to myself withing three days. I don't think I'll *ever* allow myself to be put on anti-depressants again after that. I pretty much lost a year and a half of my life to them.

That's really awful Jan, I'm sorry to hear it. I had to go through many different antidepressants to find one that works, but luckily I have. I did lose some time in some sense, but I try to encourage people not to give up on all medicines because one did not work for them. I hope you're doing better these days!

 

[Jan]

That's really awful Jan, I'm sorry to hear it. I had to go through many different antidepressants to find one that works, but luckily I have. I did lose some time in some sense, but I try to encourage people not to give up on all medicines because one did not work for them. I hope you're doing better these days!

Thanks, Kestra, I'm fine these days. I really never should have been on anti-depressants in the first place. At the time I'd recently gotten divorced and I was sad, very sad, but that's different from being depressed. In the little test that the Dr. gave me the result was...the term just fell out of my head...sort of pre-depressed? Anyway, I let her put me on the meds and gradually ended up pretty much housebound.

One thing, though. That experience gave me an understanding of how having your brain chemistry out of whack can really cripple you. There were days (before I got fired for absence) where I knew I needed to go to work, wanted to get up and go out the door and simply...couldn't. I'd sit there in the back of my mind knowing there was something wrong but I never matched it up with the meds. Very disconcerting. No...fracking scary!

I know that they can be miracle drugs for those who need them and I'm glad you found the right one, Kestra. I think I'll always be scared of them unless I'm under constant observation, though.

Jan

 

[Kestra]

That makes total sense. And yeah, not everyone needs to be on meds. I wish I didn't need them but unfortunately it's been demonstrated over and again that it's very much a brain chemistry with me. Meds don't solve everything for me and therapy has helped to a point where I feel I could get off the meds, and my shrink agrees that I probably will have long periods in my life (5+ years) where I won't need medication at all, but it's really easy for me "relapse" in a sense.

And knowing me, once I become depressed again, I wouldn't seek help until some serious damage was already done. And for a lot of people, antidepressants that worked for them the first time around don't work when they stop and then start again.

So for right now I'm staying on my meds but looking to improve myself in other ways that don't involve medicine.

I'm sorry you had to go through what you did, but isn't it weird how much a few chemicals can mess you up? And it doesn't feel like you're messed up, it just feels like that's the way you are, and that's the way you always will be. That's always been the most difficult thing for me when I have been depressed ... it just feels like that's my normal state of being.

 

[scotpens]

I am fairly sure that I am Opiate-immune as morphine didn't affect me at all and when I was prescribed Vicodin for pain, I barely used half the bottle because it didn't help.

Could you sell me the pills you didn't use? The stuff works just fine for me!

 

[CmdrAJD]

A good friend of mine discovered that she reacts badly to steroids. In some cases, people can get steroid psychosis, which comes across as being bipolar, schizophrenic, and a few other things all at the same time. Supposedly it's rare and doesn't happen to people every time they have steroids. Not so much for my friend. If she gets enough in her system, badness ensues. Every time.

She had her tonsils out a few years ago and ended up being institutionalized less than two weeks later. No one could figure out what the hell had happened to her, since she had no history of anything before that. It wasn't until a year later when she ended up on another steroid and started exhibiting the same behavior that the doctors figured out what was going on. It turned out that during her tonsilectomy the year before, the anestheisologist had injected a little bit of a steroid with the anesthetic to control inflammation.

My friend's husband has told me that now they have to watch every medication she's given very carefully, and he's learned that if any of them end in "-one" that his wife shouldn't take them. A while ago, her allergist prescribed her a nasal spray that had a steroid as an ingredient, but after a week of being on it, she started acting strangely. Her husband read the ingredients, saw one of them ended in "-one," and got rid of it. It took three days for his wife to come back to herself. They also make sure that, if she has to have any surgery (she's had at least two for different things since this all started), they talk to the anestheisologist ahead of time to make sure that she won't be given any steroids.

It's been a scary couple of years for them, but at least they now know what to avoid.

 

[Kira's Mom]

I had weird dreams for a while when I started with Effexor, but that stopped.

When I had to take Prednisone, I suddenly got so depressed that I almost jumped out of a window. Never, ever taking that stuff again.

 

[Kemaiku]

I found out last year anti-depressants and thrush medication don't mix well...