Appendix removed symptoms and conditions

I had to have my appendix removed -- told them before surgery that I had very bad chronic acid reflux, so I guess that's why the surgeon wrote orders for them to give me Reglan right after the surgery -- he did not specify for how long, and they kept giving it to me every four hours for the next day or so. Within 24 hours, I had terrible nausea causing violent dry heaves (there was nothing to throw up because I hadn't eaten anything for the previous 24 hours. When I did try a few sips of water or broth, I would immediately vomit that back up). I was dry heaving so hard and so continuously I was afraid I was going to break my stitches from the appendectomy. Also had extreme shortness of breath, like I was having an anxiety attack, extreme stiffness/pain in my neck and head mucles, like the back of my neck and my head were being crushed in a giant vise grip. Felt very dissociated and had trouble focusing my eyes and focusing my attention on anything. .
If I laid down to try to rest, the shortness of breath would get worse -- would feel like I was suffocating. So then I would get up and walk around a little to try to breathe better, and the violent dry heaves would start again until I was so exhausted from them I would try to lay down again to rest a little. Then the shortness of breath would start up again, and I would have to stand up . . . I went round and round like that for a solid 24 hours, no sleep, until the surgeon showed up for his rounds and decided I might be having a reaction to the Reglan, that he hadn't intended for them to keep me on it for that long. They took me off the Reglan, then the surgeon and my regular MD called in a neurologist who prescribed Flexaril for the neck stiffness and Phenergan for the nausea, instead of the Zofran they had been giving me, which wasn't helping.
Within 30 minutes of my first doses of Phenergan and Flexaril (and I had been off the Reglan for about 3-4 hours by then), I was sleeping like a baby, and continued to rest comfortably throughout the night, and was able to go home the next day with prescriptions for Phenergan, Lortab, and Flexaril. I will never, NEVER allow anyone to give me Reglan again -- I seiously felt like I was dying, and it scared the h*ll out of both my husband and me, because I am not the "sickly" type at all, The entire episode was a nightmare, and I am convinced it was directly related to the Reglan.

Lauren- May 2005 through August 3, 2007: The following is my daughter’s story which I put on paper so that she could bring it with her to the gynecologist in case I couldn’t be with her. I didn’t want her to forget anything. Someone suggested that I post it to a website:
The most recent issue seems to have started when she first went away to college in the fall of 2005. She came home one weekend with a stomach virus (vomiting, nausea), but it seemed to never completely go away. She was taken to the ER a few times, just to be treated for dehydration and sent home because there was 'nothing wrong with her'...Over the next few months she seemed to constantly feel sick, nauseous, fatigued, and get a lot of headaches. We took her to her primary care doctor, who did blood work and treated her for heartburn, acid reflux, etc.. During this time, she actually had appendicitis and had her appendix removed. After that she continued to feel sick. So we moved on to the gastroenterologist who ran many tests: cat scan endoscopies, more blood work, and were told that they couldn't find anything wrong. Then we started with a nutritionist to help her eat healthier and hopefully reduce the nausea which subsided occasionally but never let up. Nothing there helped. Then it was back to another gastroenterologist with no results. Over this time, anxiety was hitting her big time. She was finishing up finals in her first year of college and was constantly skipping classes because she was too nauseous to get out of bed for her 8:00 classes. Home for the summer - no relief. She decides she couldn't go back to her college for her 2nd year so she enrolled in community college - not exactly the plan, but at least she was on course with her classes and doing well. Still stressed and nauseous, we started with the neurologist who prescribed many medicines and ordered an MRI, which showed nothing (no problems, not no brain!). Back to the primary care doctor who finally diagnosed her with Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which fit the current symptoms of nausea, severe diarrhea while vomiting and the finale: passing out. So, back to the state college for 2nd semester of sophomore year. But the medication for IBS was making her too sleepy to get through the day, so she discontinued it. The symptoms had subsided a bit but towards the end of the school year got worse again - just in time for finals, again. During that semester at school, she sought counseling at school which seemed to help her stress level, but she still had daily ‘melt-downs’, so the therapist sent her to a psychiatrist for meds. The doctor started her on the lowest dose (25mg) of Zoloft. As she started to feel a bit better, they increased the Zoloft over the next few months until she was at 100 mg. Home for the summer, the symptoms came and went, but about 2 weeks after she started the 100 mg, she confided in me that she was feeling depressed and actually had thought of 'not caring if she died'. We immediately took her to the psychiatrist upstate who had treated her at school and whom she had seen once since she left school. (She had also continued with the cognitive therapy at the college.) The doctor told her to start weaning off the Zoloft, but start Seraquel (another seratonin-based drug). She also said she was going on vacation and Lauren needed to be seen often as she switched medications, so she advised us to find another psychiatrist closer to home to monitor her progress. So the new doctor put her on Wellbutrin, continued to wean her off Zoloft, and continued her on the Seraquel. He also ordered blood work and a fasting glucose-tolerance test (all of which came back normal/negative). The symptoms got severely worse over the next 2 weeks: constant nausea, vomiting, dizziness, weakness, fainting. On Monday, she spoke with the psychiatrist and he told her to stop all meds. We continued to believe that the recent symptoms were caused by either the psychotic meds themselves, still in her system or the withdrawal of the meds. By Tuesday night, she had been vomiting for almost 24 hours and I had to take her to the ER, not because I thought they could figure out what was wrong, but to re-hydrate her because she was becoming dehydrated. After 7 hours, and more blood work, x-ray, EKG, she was released and proceeded to get nauseous on the way home at 4AM. BUT, a very nice nurse came in while Lauren had fallen asleep and asked me why my daughter was on so many meds. I basically told her the above story and she asked me when Lauren started on birth control pills. I told her that I took her to my gyn. in May of 2005, before she was going off to college and we told him about the terrible menstrual cycle (heavy bleeding and 1 day a month home with cramps all through high school) and he put her on Ortho-tricycline low. At her 3 month check, she told him she was losing large amounts of hair. He changed her contraceptive to 'Ov-con 35'. In November, she complained of nausea and he switched her to Yasmin. She has been on it ever since. The nurse asked me if I was aware that every symptom that Lauren has had since October of 2005 could be a side effect of oral contraceptives!! She told me about a book to buy, written by Dr. John Lee about hormones and imbalances. She told me not to stop the b.c. pills abruptly, because since they are synthetic hormones, and with what her body was going through, it might put her into an hormonal chaos, similar to a full-blown menopause! So we are now reading the book, waiting to do saliva- testing and trying to see a gyn. to help us. Her own gyn. has a personal family emergency and is on a temporary leave of absence (as we found out when his office canceled her yearly check-up twice in the last 10 days). We are trying to get her in with one of the other doctors. She cannot start a 3rd year of college still feeling ill!
Added to the above is the fact that my husband’s sister called to see what was going on with Lauren after she got a phone call from her mother. It turns out that my niece, Heather (age 23), has been making the rounds with the doctors and having testing done (MRI, blood work, etc.,) because she has been nauseous and passing out. Guess what medicine she is taking…..Yasmin!

This is the list of most of the medicines (besides the 3 oral contraceptives) that she has been on during the last 27 months because of the side effects of Yasmin, and no doctor suggests she stop her oral contraceptive pills for a few months!
Prochloroperaz (5mg), Topamax (25mg), Prevacid (30mg), Zofran (4mg), Omeprazole (20mg), Amitriptyline (25mg), Amitriptyline (50mg), Inderal (60mg), Propranolol (10mg), Amitriptyline (10mg), Sertraline (Zoloft) (25mg), Sertraline (Zoloft) (50mg), Metoclopramide (5mg), Sertraline (Zoloft) (100mg), Seroquel (25mg), Wellbutrin (150mg), Dicyclomine (10mg), Compazine (severe reaction: Extrapyramidal), and other anti-nausea meds in 4 trips to the ER (one due to the reaction to Compazine!)

In 1980, my neice was given Anectine anesthesia during a D & C procedure. Her side effects were: blood pressure dropped dramatically, could not breathe on her own, no feeling in extremities. Weakness continued for several days after returning home. It was discovered her father's mother had the same symtoms. After testing other sibs, they found all girls in that family was allergic to Anectine but NOT the boys. This was declared to be hereditary and the girls had a less than normal amount of pseudocholinesterase which did not allow the Anectine to be broken down in the body.

Hi... I've been on Yasmin since July of '05. I was in the hospital in June, with what I thought was appendicitis. They said no that it could be something else, like gas or an ovarian cyst...they sent me home with some meds and said to come back if the pain doesn't go away. It went away, so that made me think that I had a problem with cysts. I saw my gynocologist, they recommended birth control, for that random, non-diagnosed pain I had, and also for those monthly cramps that were so harmful I couldn't move. Well, the cramps don't come as painful and my period has been starting to shorten, like 3-5 days now. So, I figured Yay for Yasmin. Yeah, well...not anymore. I've had a problem with Insomnia pretty much since then. (P.S. I'm 21, went away for school in August. Oh, and in September, I had to get my appendix removed.) I didn't think anything of it, since as long as I can remember, I've always had a problem sleeping, even when I was about 5 or 6 years old. Anyways, I saw my doctor a few weeks ago for my not sleeping, and he mentioned that this problem could be linked to the birth control I'm taking, but didn't go in depth about it. He was quick to say that I was depressed and that he didn't think anything was physically wrong. Well, the guy was an ass, but that's besides the point. He said come back in a month so we can talk more. It's like he was so anxious to go party for St. Patty's Day! So, he made me take some blood tests to confirm that I didn't have any thyroid problems, anemia, or whatnot. Test results: normal. I have a follow up appointment in a few weeks...I stormed home and cried, because I cry easily, because the doc said I was depressed. I don't want to be. I got the idea from my father, yes, my father, about looking into the birth control idea. I found some things for PMDD, but also that Yasmin is supposed to reduce those symptoms of it. And after reading all these posts from you gals, I'm almost freaking out. I can't sleep, only sometimes when I take sleep aids, which I've been taking almost every day for the past 3 months, because I get so frustrated that I can't even breathe! My heart rate speeds up, I have to take a walk down the hall and try to catch my breath; I am very, very irritable, random mood swings almost all the time, not just around my period; no motivation, some appetite changes, anxiety, stress, feeling of always being overwhelmed...and another strange thing: my boobs have grown almost 2 cup sizes since November!! It's so strange, I get freaked out by myself sometimes...usually once a month. My poor boyfriend, I get mad at him right around when my period is due, cry to him, scream at him...he shouldn't have to deal with that when he does nothing but love me. Sounds corny, but it's true; he's still with me and just lets me scream at him and cry and moan and complain and all those nasty other things that are going on in me. And this post is going to be long...almost starting to sound like one big ass complaint. I'm sick of feeling this way, but don't want to think that Yasmin is what's causing it all. Unfortunately, it's now in my head...I can relate to most of these symptoms everyone here has explained. Everything else with Yasmin has been fine with me... it's helped with cramps, with acne, with the overall regulation of my period... not much weight gain other than my breats... it's just the whole other thing...those emotional problems... Yes, I'm in a dorm room...I can't sleep most nights...the hall is noisy...I'm at a school that's located in the Boondocks, so there's nothing to do most of the time...I don't feel like doing anything anyway... I'm pissed that I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated that I'm moody. I'm moody because I can't sleep. I can't sleep because I'm irritable and sensitive. I'm irritable and sensitive because I don't sleep. It's just one big ass cycle... I hate cycles. That cycle and the cycle of being a woman. That's enough for me. I feel the Tylenol PM kicking in. I vent to everyone I meet. I'm crazy, I just know it. If it's not the pill, I'm crazy.