Army symptoms and conditions

I got my Mirena IUD (5yr) inserted on 30September2009 and it was very painful. Probably because im only 19 and my husband and i have no kids. Its not 21November2009 and im still having heavy bleeding. I did notice that i had an increase in hair loss, my hair sheds like crazy but until Mirena it is coming out in very small clumps. I also noticed that my face has broke out more with acne. Around 01November2009 i had HORRIBLE HORRIBLE cramps, i ended up going to my doctors asap and they found a cyst. I dont know if it was a cyst caused my the Mirena or if it was only noticeable until the Mirena. I had my doctor go in and check for my strings and she couldn't find them, so i got an xray to find out the my Mirena has shifted a bit and my strings are now up in my Cervix. My husband is in the Army and is Deployed so i dont know how sex it. Everyone's information has helped me out a lot. and i hope that my long crazy journey has helped someone as well. :)

I am a 41 year old Black Male, retired Army, athletic, and active. I was treated for HBP on 31 may 09. After taking the meds (Lisinopril) for about 2-3 weeks, I developed a chronic dry cough 24/7. It feels like something is always stuck in my throat or sticking me in the side or back of my throat. I am having chest pains also. sometimes I feel depressed for no reason and very irritable. I has sex with a woman a couple weeks after I had the meds. I really thought she had given me an STD or HIV or something. I even went and got checked for everything and made her do the same. I am glad I found this site. Thank you all.

I had the Mirena put in 2006 after my third child. I talked with my sister who had it put in a couple of years before. She could not handle all the other birth controls. It was very uncomfterable being put in but not untollerable. I spotted off and on the first couple of months. Had cramps for the first few days. After that nothing at least i though nothing till i read all these. My husband is in the Army, we moved to Germany the next year, I got very depressed. I also gain some weight not a lot but enough to notice. I was very moody the time i had the Mirena and felt very stressed all the time. I had the Mirena removed in 2008 so we could try to have another baby. It was not so bad getting it taken out as being put in. I bleed heave after for about 5 days. I also lost some of the weight not doing anything different. When my husband got home we tried to get pg for 18 days straight and nothing. The Mirena is not for everyone and you should think about it before you get it and keep in mind all the things different women have gone through to see if its happening to you as well.

Is there anyone out there that has had severe chest pains, particularly in the sternum region, on the ring? I've had mine out for two days after weeks of RAGE and back pain...along with chest pains and heart palpitations. Just hoping the chest pain and pressure will subside.
Thank you.

i thought it was just me but i have sat here for about 45 minutes and read about the other side effects other women have had on this pill...
im 17 and was started on femcon fe for ovarian cysts and i have been so emotional that i have had 6 people in 1 week ask me if im pregnant because im so emotional. my boyfriend is in the army and has been deployed to Iraq until July, he told me he loved me and i started crying and he asked me what was wrong and i didn't know and ive been on ortho tri cyclen lo and i had an amazing experience on it
another incident was when i was standing in the lunch line at school and a girl took the last sandwich and i just fell to peaces OVER A SANDWICH!!! i know this pill has something to do with it so ive just stopped taking it i want back on ortho tri cyclen lo

I have been on Lupron for not even a month yet. My side effects are bad headaches, the pain has not gone away, I am still having my period, I have terrible mood swings, I have trouble sleeping, I have no sex drive at all, (my husband hates that) I get shortness of breath sometimes. I get hot flashes, they don't really last long, but when they hit, they hit. I get stomach aches and nausea sometimes. I think the worst thing about me is that I am in the Army. One doctor that I was seeing did a sonogram, a CT scan(i think), and put me on birth control pills, but none of that worked. She said there was nothing wrong with me and that I was making it all up. She said I needed to go to mental health. I finally got referred to OBGYN. The doctor there did a laproscopy, but let her tell it, she doesn't even know if I have endometriosis. She said I have a lot of scar tissue, but she can't say if it is endometriosis. Why are you treating me for endometriosis if you don't know for sure if I have it? The worst part of all is that I am supposed to be deploying to Iraq next month and I am still in pain. Yall please pray for me...

Sorry, I can't just walk away.

When you find patents or patent applications for certain purposes, then you know that your ideas are well founded. There are several patents for using an anti-malaria drug for asthma. I would bet that somebody had that idea all the way back to the 1960's. So it is very possibly no coincidence at all that a chloroquinoline or other quinoline ring would be part of montelukast's chemical structure.

Here is one of the patents.

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It is well known that quinoline rings can be toxic to some people even very rapidly. As in this very extreme example.
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PEDIATRICS Vol. 27 No. 1 January 1961, pp. 95-102 This Article

FATAL ACUTE CHLOROQUINE POISONING IN CHILDREN
Howard M. Cann M.D.1 and Henry L. Verhulst M.S.1

1 National Clearinghouse for Poison Control Centers, Accident Prevention Program, Public Health Service, U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
Four cases of acute chloroquine poisoning in children are presented. In three instances death occurred within 2 hours of ingestion of larger than therapeutic amounts of the drug. The rapid occurrence of death in acute chloroquine poisoning is probably explained by complete and rapid absorption of the drug from the gastrointestinal tract resulting in high blood concentrations which depress vasomotor function and respiration. Cardiac arrest follows and may be caused by the direct myocardial action of chloroquine, to anoxia, or to both. The similarity of the manifestations of acute chloroquine poisoning and those of acute quinine and quinidine poisoning suggests that acute toxicity may be attributed to the quinoline ring portion of these drugs.

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I don't think that we are seeing extreme examples. But we may be seeing less extreme immediate reactions or reactions where the toxicity builds up over time.

Quinoline rings are know to cause neurotoxicity. There are theories about how that happens. One of the theories is about blocking connexins which are gap junction proteins in the brains.

I don't know how montelukast could be breaking up so that it causes toxicity. Or if the problem is the how rapidly the liver enzymes can metabolize it. But there is plenty, plenty, plenty of clinical evidence that there is a quinoline ring culprit somewhere in the picture. Or some by-product of that causing problems.

Somehow it was decided that montelukast did not have the safety issues that the other drugs in the same category have. See this.

"The starting point in the development of montelukast appears to be a quinoline-containing structure, likely identified as a weak random screening lead (Figure 3). The Merck group hypothesized that this molecule was mimicking the olefin backbone of cysLTs, and that the addition of mimics for the acid and peptide regions of LTD4, might improve its potency. As a first step, the dithioacetal linkage first seen in some SmithKline compounds was incorporated; this led to a compound with greatly increased in vitro potency but poor oral bioavailability. When one of the carboxylic acids was replaced by an amide, forming MK-571, the new antagonist had even greater potency and good efficacy following oral administration. The enantiomers were resolved to yield MK-679 (verlukast), a compound with better clinical effects than MK-571, but whose clinical development was stopped for safety reasons. Further structure-activity relationship studies led to the development of montelukast (16), an antagonist that appears free of the safety concerns plaguing earlier members of this series."

If we can find out why the earlier versions were not safe and how they thought fixed it, then maybe we can find out what is going on with the quinoline ring in some people.

I would be very surprised if the FDA will address our concerns. Why does it always seem like they wait for enough people to die like in Vioxx? Wasn't Vioxx responsible for thousands of deaths?

Ohhh Lord now as I am writing this to you all i am crying b/c my mother told me about this after she saw it on NBC Nightly news tonight now when she told me about the suicidal thoughts that people were having after taking this medication thats what opened my eyes b/c i thought it was b/c i was stressed or something I have these thoughts on and off and also the waking up for no reason in the night and the stomach ache i started having about three months ago I started taking Singular damn there 2 years now for my damn asthma that i got from when i was in the Army now what kind of craziness is that I definitely have bad mood swings im just upset and shocked about this I mean how can these so called Doctors prescribed these damn pills to us and we are bad off then when we stared after taking this stuff I am soo pissed off right now and you know what I am thinking about suing the FDA my damn self b/c this is not right

I have been prescribed Lisinopril by a military doctor(I am retired Army), I am not having any major side effects except many some lack of energy, my real concern is erectile disfunction, I read nothing in these posts of that concern, my blood pressure is under control , I sleep well, not overweight, play tennis two and three times a week, has any male had similar side effects?, I am 61 years old, active, work eight hours a day and mostly feel great except for the erection issues, any comments?

In regards to my last post, I was seen by my OB last week and the string is still there. Just like I thought, it coiled itself around my cervix. She pulled it back out and sent me on my way. My husband and I don't plan on having another baby for a few years so Mirena is perfect for us. I think what a lot of women have to realize is whenever you put a foreign object into your body it's going to react. Your body is your army. It's all about what you're willing to put up with. The woman's body is designed to have children, putting something in it that is denying the creation of a child is like entering another country with hostility. I'm not saying what any of you feel is invalid. It's not the fault of the IUD, every woman's body is different and unfortunately Mirena isn't going to work for everyone. I feel for the ladies who have to go through this and hope you find something that works for you.

I am taking Topomax for migraines. I always start everything at a really LOW dose since I have a lot of probs with side effects. Started at 15 mg and went right away to 30mg (15mg twice daily) the second week because I was dying from headaches. The other antidepressants prescribed for constant daily headache prevention all of a sudden weren't working. I didn't want to take my abortive med for migraines every day (Amerge) so I was curious if Topomax might help my daily headache pain. Possibly my daily headaches had become migraines... so hard to tell one from the other anymore. I teach exercise for a living and so much of my headache pain is exercise induced. I found that while on topomax, all of a sudden 2 Advil would take away a headache I would get after exercising which never happened before. I would take two Advil before doing some of my hardest exercise to prevent a headache and for the most part that worked too... and that never worked before. I had tried all kinds of NSAID's before and after exercise at the advice of my neurologist to no avail. I did have one diffuse headache yesterday that might have been a true migraine and I took Amerge because Advil didn't help. I have been on the 30 mg two week now. But, now the downside. Since on the 30mg I feel like my chest is heavy a lot of time when I do water exercise... I am exhausted a lot doing my usual routines... I feel edgy, can't sleep well at night. I HAVE to have a two hour nap after teaching in the morning or I can't function mentally or physically. I sleep well for that nap time. Seems like I have thermoregulation problems. I teach water exercise and if the water is a little cold it bothers me and it never used to. Then in the pool awhile I feel hot. Same when I sleep.. I need a lot of covers, then I throw them off. Then they are on again. No I am not menopausal yet. My brain is hazy on topomax as well. I take bellydance lessons and sometimes I realize I can't remember what my teacher just told me. Now people reading this, don't think that just because this happens to me, it will happen to you. I know people who LOVE topomax with zero side effects. They don't tend to write in to posting boards. Also, sometimes side effects go away. Be patient if you want to give topomax a shot. I am thinking I am going to go back to 15 mg again... and see how I tolerate that. Because I teach exercise, the hardest thing is to feel the heaviness in the chest and the lack of ambition. This is not me. It is great not to have the headache pain, but I don't know if this is the drug for me. I was excited about the "losing weight " side effect , and I could see how skinny people who lose their appetite easily might be affected, but it takes a lot to stop me from eating LOL darn! I did read in another chat some poor chap had sinisitis for months and took TONS of antibiotics before finding out Topomax gives sinisitis type side effects in a small amount of people. So if you get sinisitis, don't take antibiotics before checking out if topomax is the culprit.

My heart goes out to every person out there trying to find the magic bullet for their headache, siezures, whatever... ADVICE.. .start with SMALL doses... you may be able to get used to side effects if you work up slowly in ALL drugs. In many drugs that didn't come in small doses, I took out 3/4 of what was inside just to get a mini dose. Ask your doc if you can mix one capsule or one pounded up tab of your med with juice and store it in the referigerator. You can drink say 1/8 cup a day of the juice to get 1/8 of a capsule. It is a lot easier than chopping up a tab into eighths. Also ask your doc about childrens doses that come in liquids with droppers. Topomax makes taking smaller doses easy with the sprinkles.. you are encouraged to open the capsule and sprinkle as little as you want on food. Good luck all. L.

I took Levaquin 1 1/2 yrs ago............First I shoud say I am a 55 yr old man and have not been to the doctor since I was in the army.........when I was 20.....I had severe abdominal pains for about a year.. I finally told my wife about theser pains. and she made the doctors appointment for me that she has been insisting on for years.. The doctor gave me some free samples of levaquin... Free samples do no include the insert advising of side effects.(that should be illegal). any way he told me to take the drug for 7 days..Finally going to the doctor after all those years, I did as I was told.. I developed a severe rash over my entire body.. the itching was un believable.. the intensity of pleasure in itching thr rash especially my shins was indescribable.........the pain after was equal to the pleasure..I then went on predisone for 9 days to get rid of the rash.......the itchings and pleasure (tho reduced) remains. my skin has white blotches in it.. and my skin is permanantly dried out. Please tell everyone you know.........................watch for side effects, and stop taking immediately............I waited too long, and took the drug as it was prescribed.

I just got it yesterday but after reading this I won't take it. I wanted it to lose some water.

A GREAT blood pressure pill that I started on after four other ones gave me bad side effects, is Clonidine. My father has been taking it fr 50 years. He started as a newbie in the Army. I told my doctor I wanted to try it. She said that it would make me sleepy, so I went to another doctor and he put me on 0.1 ML, the lowest dose - and that if it made me sleepy - then to take it at night. It is great.

Clonidine treats all kinds of things but is great for lowering BP.

I have taken metoprolol for several years starting while I was serving in the army (late twenties). Now I am 37 years old. The first problem I encountered was lethargy, which forced me to cut it in half and take at different times of the day. But the worst problem by far is numbness in the hands. just holding a pen or pencil will cause fingers to go numb. I am a guitar player but that is quickly becoming an impossible task. It just recently occured to me that a drug change may reverse this- if anyone has an anecdote please contact me, thank you.

about 9 months after Iraq I began taking 10 mg of Paxil. By july I was taking 40mg in adition of another drug to help. During the first 3 months I would sleep about 12 hours a day and sometimes 40 hours in a 48 hour period. Lets say the Army was not having a good time with me. There were many dizzy days and spells. It was hard to fall asleep and always imposible to get up. I had anxiety atacks about 3-7 per week and sometimes 2-3 per day. Sadly my leaders would not let me go home from the field. Now it has been 5 months sine I began taking the medication and I am getting round. I have been 145 pounds since age 24 until age 29. I began getting round at age 30 and it is not the age but the medications. I notised fatige during workouts and after long runs. I question my future in the military based on the condition I am in now. Of course, there is no sexual apitite but good thing myy wife was going through the end of her pregnancy. I have a few months before my wife gets an apetite. Allthough Paxil has helped me control my disorder which was out of control at one point, I now have other problems which are affecting me in my personal life and slowly clashing with my work