Bad day symptoms and conditions

Mirena the BANE of our existence! I had mine put in January 2009 and then taken out this week. I thought maybe I should ride it out for awhile, see if some of the problems went away with time... and to be honest some of them did. The acne subsided, the cramps lessened and the periods became virtually non-existent. However, the headaches, the mood swings, the tiredness and depression and not to mention 20lbs along with boobs that went from C to DD, I couldn't handle them anymore. Removal was uncomfortable but 1/8 of the pain of insertion. I had some clotting but it only lasted a couple hours. I have been experiencing a crash in emotions but nothing worse than a "bad" day with Mirena. The only real problem I have run into was the PA that removed it. Please learn from this experience and don't become discouraged by ignorant and book smart doctors...
My doctor had the audacity to tell me that all of these "symptoms" were probably my body returning to it's natural state, that is to the way it was before I ever went on birth control. I was on Ortho for 8 years before I decided to give myself a break and insert. So what this woman was telling me was that there were no documented side effects to legitimize my issues. She was saying in no certain terms that from the ages of 13-18 before BC, I was fat, moody, irrational, with acne, craps and gigantic breasts. I was offended to say the least and tensely asked her to take it out and put me back on the pill. Now I am just praying I don't experience another catastrophe with whatever this "woman" has decided to prescribe me. You can be sure I will be doing my research before putting anything else into my system. Thank you ladies for your honesty and thank you medications.com.

I have been on Yasmin now since around 2004-2005.

I just recently started experiencing really severe mood swings, I would go so far as to say that I have become enraged over things that are so insignificant and that would normally would not bother me even on a bad day. This anger that usually starts right before my period made me start thinking that it might be from my birth control, even though it has only been an issue over the past six months. I have never in my life suffered from PMS, so this was very out of the ordinary for me, but I just assumed I was over stressed and ignored it.

I started looking up side effects of Yasmin, and came across this site which sent me into absolute shock.

Everything listed here by other people, I have experienced over the past four or five years. It all makes sense to me now after reading about other woman's experiences while taking this medication.

I started seeing a GI doctor in 2005 because of extreme diarrhea, nausea, fatigue, dizziness. They ran multiple tests and scans, I had an endoscopy and a colonoscopy which showed irritation. I've been on multiple medications for what they assume is IBS. I was also diagnosed that same year with asthma because of extreme shortness of breath. I am on asthma medication and inhalers because I get very short of breath with exercise which was never an issue in the past. I was 110 pounds, and healthy and active in 2005. I then started to gain weight, and at my heaviest I reached almost 180 lbs (and I am only 5ft 2in tall).

I have since lost weight, but can't seem to get below 140 lbs no matter how much I try. In March of this year I started having extreme pain in my right upper abdomen, and was told I had gallstones and needed to have my gallbladder removed.

It is just makes me so angry to know that no one is doing anything about this and this medication is still being prescribed to women. It angers me that my doctor's knew that I was on this medication and never once questioned that it may be the birth control making me sick. I don't even think the doctor's are aware themselves.

I have been on birth control since I was sixteen to help regulate my periods, and I am now twenty-eight. I have always had difficulty with the pill and have tried many different types of birth control medications. My doctor recommended Yasmin to me because they though I might have poly-cystic ovarian syndrome even though the tests never confirmed it. I will take my chances because I am not taking birth control ever again!

Hi...I've been on Topamax since October of last year. I take 50mg. in the morning and again at night. I haven't noticed any real significant decrease in the migraine frequency, just in the duration. Whereas sometimes I'd be in bed for an entire day, sometimes 2, now they only last until the early afternoon. A big plus. However, there are some side effects that I just can't live with. The dry mouth is a pain in the butt but that I can deal with. What I can't deal with is the almost complete loss of my short term memory. It's so bad that I will ask a person the same question numerous times in a 5 minute time period and have absolutely NO recollection of having asked the question previously. I have found myself walking down the street and not known where I am. I dial the telephone and not remember who is going to pick up on the other end. And I'm dazed and confused on a good day. On a bad day it's worse. I can't live like this. So...I was wondering if others had the same awful symptom that I'm experiencing. I have others that bother me but that one is the worst. Also, how do I wean myself off of this medication? Thanks for listening.....D.

I am prescribed trazodone 150mg cause I am a sever clinical depressant. I have adjusted it to 75mg. due to feeling so bad on the high dose. I now sleep which I was not before. And when I have a bad day I take the full dose. It works for me. I have not noticed any side effects.

I have been off YAZ for 3 weeks and am so happy to be rid of this drug. It has caused me so much suffering. I was so emotional - crying and upset all the time. I was so depressed. I never got my period once during the 5 months I was on it. I work out all the time and have actually gained weight while on this pill. I have had a cold twice during the 5 months and each time it lasted 3 weeks. I am a normally healthily person, but every day on YAZ was a bad day. I do not recommend this drug for anyone. I haven't slept well in months and I have had fatigue as well.

Ok, I've been a regular on here since th removal of my IUD on Valentine's day, and I'm in need of some encouragement. If you read my last postings you will see I've had some ups and downs since Feb 14. I'm sorry for not reiterating, but it hurts to type. I have been feeling so AMAZING since I had it out, with ONE bad day, then woke up the next day again with that wonderful feeling again and so much energy. For the last 3 days I have been borderline depressed again, the incredible sex drive is gone, I have less energy, and my joints are really hurting again, like when I was on Mirena. I was forewarned there would be some ups and downs over the next few months. I guess I'm just hoping to hear from some of you ladies that you had some downs that lasted more than just one day. I'm just anxious to know when I might expect to feel good again. Thanks..

I have had Mirena for about a year now. My periods never really went away. They did used to be very heavy before my Mirena was inserted but I seem to bleed or have bloodlike discharge more like three weeks out of four now. I too have experienced sore cyst like acne on my chin which I have never had in my life, and it comes and goes and seems to be in one area. I have not felt like myself at times, as if theres a cloudiness, which has often times made me wonder if I am coming down with a terminal illness. No doubt it is just the effects of the Mirena since I have always been healthy. I have lost complete interest in sex and that was NOT like me, I even need lotion and it takes a lot to get me interested, and I do it only to make him happy now. I feel like a completely different person right now. I have never had a problem maintaining my weight and knew how to take off an extra 5 lbs like no one else but seems like even if I starve myself I have the added puffiness around my abdomen even if I suck it in. I have always been 120 or 125 on a bad day, since I was a teen even after having three kids. If I work out or even if I don't, but now after a year I am 130 on a bad day and 125 on a good day and as I said I have to try extremely hard to have the good day. I have less energy in the gym and my heart rate goes through the roof, it seems much harder to catch my breath. I blame my IUD. I have for the past two days experienced lower pelvic pain, behind my vaginal wall. Im pretty sure it is the Mirena. Doctors seem to keep telling you guys what they think to be true when with all due respect they should be more concerned about what the patients who are actually on this method are experiencing and with that information they really should have more research done on this before making an non educated guess.

My 6 year old son was on Singulair for 2 months for viral induced asthma. After about 2 weeks we started noticing that angry tears were pouring out of him about minor problems - his brother didn't want to want to watch the same TV show as him, etc. By 2 weeks later he had started having daily major meltdowns, yelling that he didn't love us and never had, refusing all physical affection and calling himself a loser. This was behavior we had never seen from him before. After a month of this, we were really beginning to think that he either had a mental illness or was having a nervous breakdown. There was a wild look in his eye, and it was obvious that his behavior was confusing him, too, but he was powerless to stop it. My husband had the insight to check the Singulair side-effects the evening of a particularly bad day and we pulled him off immediately. The next day I talked to an acquaintance whose normally laid back and happy 7 year old had started saying he wished he were dead after 3 months on Singulair!

The "edge" my son had to him while on Singulair that made us think of mental illness went away almost immediately after taking him off Singulair. He was still quite irritable and quick to tears for two more weeks, but right now he's been off 3 weeks and I think we have our son back.

I'm still in disbelief about how all of us are experiencing the same side effects. i NEVER would have thought that Mirena could have caused any of this. I'm glad i googled it and found this site.
I'm having mine removed tomorrow and i can't wait!!!!! i can't wait to feel normal again

I want to add something to my original post. I only took this med for 10 days (5mg) and was miserable. After 3 weeks I was beginning to feel better (having 1 bad day, then 2 good) when suddenly I experienced pain in my left side, numbness and tingling. My doctor sent me for a kidney scan. Five days after this new pain began, I developed another rash. I realized that I had shingles. So PLEASE be careful if you have any symptoms. This puts a terrible stress on your immune system. Apparently my immune system couldn't handle the stress and the result is shingles. So, I'm miserable again and probably have another 3 weeks to go before I begin to come out from this episode.

Also, for those of you who are switching to another blood pressure medicine that is an ace inhibitor (as lisinopril is), you will not tolerate those either. They are all made from the same ingredient, snake venom.

Its hard to say for sure what people will experience with any of these drugs, but its nice to hear from you all.

I am looking at whether geodon or lamictal is causing me these horride nightmares.

It seems both drugs can.

I started taking catapres, which is a blodd pressure med that has an off-label use to control nightmares which helped quite a bit...

but beware...missing a dose or two of caterpress will give you a rather bad day, as it suppresses adrenaline...which causes nightmares.....so imagine what happens when this suppression suddenly stops???? BAD.

i am tapering off geodon, i had no issue with it, but being seroquel is the only FDA approved anti-psychotic med to treat depression/aniexty....i will find out soon if the geodon was causing the nightmares or the lamictal. i will post later.

just know- for me..tappering off geodon is not going pleasant for me.

my doctor said the drug rep even mentioned it had a high side effect profile...

I am 26 years old and I thought I was having a heart attack last night. I seriously thought I was going to die. At work my feet and hands started to swell up really bad, but that went away pretty quickly. Then I started getting dizzy and feeling nauseated. My heart felt like it was going to beat out of it's chest and all I could do was think about it! I went and had my blood pressure checked at Walgreen's and they said it wasn't high enough for me to go to the ER, but I was scared. I was told I was having a panic attack to take deep breathes and try to take my mind off of it! Well that is hard to do when you are convinced that you are having a heart attack. Now I am experiencing pain in my lower back and having sharp stabbing pains near my left ovary and in my left shoulder down to my elbow.......when will this end? I just want my body back again!

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?

As you may recognize, I have posted here before. I had tremendous problems after being given Levaquin which included a distal bicep rupture and numerous CNS problems. Recently I have developed yet another "condition". I have been very dizzy in the mornings and have had very headaches along with vision changes. After some checking, it has been determined that my fasting glucose level is 143 mg/dL first thing in the morning. Obviously, I now have a sugar problem. I am not overweight, not generally unhealthy, and I am very active! I have read elsewhere that after Levaquin, sugar clearance is a problem. Well, I am here to confirm that. When will this stop?

Hi all,

My first time on this site, it's quite interesting to see how people have very similar side effects. My case is I fought with a Poison Ivy and lost, my left arm shows the battle scars. Before going to the doctor, I tried Calamine, Caladryl, Cort Aide, Ivarest, Aveeno Oat Meal Baths & Tee Tree Oil. All failed to help, so off to my doc I went. After what I told him I tried using, he told me to stop. He noted those things do nothing to help Poison Ivy rashes to go away, he prescribed for me to take 20mg of Prednisone 3x a day for 4 days, then knock it down to 2x for 4 days and then 1x for 4 days. He also prescribed Cortisone Cream and to buy OTC Doneboro to soak my arm, it smells just like vinegar..I wonder! I have been taking Prednisone since Monday, so far the only side effects that have shown up is Insomnia and coughing. I do have A LOT more energy than I used to have, my job is enjoying my spitfire mode. The question is, what will happen once I am off this stuff? I've read and heard a lot of nasty things about this drug and I guess I will find out in another 9 more days, I've never been on Prednisone before, I do watch for changes in my body. Making sure I am not growing a beard or mustache, that my boobs don't expand (even though it would make my husband VERY happy). I am sorry to see many on here are having a bad time with this, maybe some of you should get a second opinion. Some doctors today are babied by pharmaceutical companies to push drugs, with some issues some of you have you may want to research your health problems more. Never take the word of your doctor as concrete, they are human too and make mistakes. I believed one fertility doctor until I researched my condition to find out I would never be able to have children, they milked my health plan until I faced them with my findings of medical research sites and online articles by universities. Never again! Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Don't be fooled, research for yourself. I will keep you posted as to my next 9 day countdown.

Alison

I'm a 25 year old female. On my second packet of Yasmin. My doctor put me on it for my skin and after having 2 years of just been natural I have noticed the side effects of depression, emotional out breaks, anxiety, excessive worry, nervous, spotting blood, heavy periods, paranoid, excess gas & gastro & headaches. Excessive eating then days of not feeling hungry at all. Which is not me at all. My great relationship with my boyfriend is suffering massively. I don't feel like my happy social self at all. This has happened over a holiday period when I was quite relaxed and had no real worries in my life. I have had depression and anxiety in my history and do battle with the odd bad day from time to time but this pill has made my anxiety become serve to the point of uncontrollable crying and extreme worry over anything I could find to worry about. Just before my period while on the inactive pills I experience extreme gastro. Headaches that don't seem to let up as well. Spend my hole holiday looking for Panadol. I realize this is a fairly new age pill and that it promises hardly any weight again, good skin and so on but I highly don't think its worth it. How much has it been trailed and tested? I rather have bad skin & even carry a few kilo's taking a pill that women have been taking since the 50's- or just be natural.

In January I was diagnosed with polymyalgia rheumatica and temporal arteritis (giant cell arteritis). I was put on 60 mg prednisone and an array of other meds to help with pain, inflammation, water retention, and stomach problems from everything. I've lost some vision from the TA. I've experienced the weight gain, the moon face, stomach problems, depression, fatigue, muscle weakness, lack of memory and concentration, and generally feel miserable. The brain fog is awful! I don't trust myself doing much of anything these days!

When I was first put on the prednisone it completely took away all my TA and PMR symptoms. I could walk and get up and down again, didn't have the headaches, and didn't hurt all over.
My doctor tried to taper my dosage about 6 weeks ago and all my symptoms returned and increased as I went down on the prednisone. He upped me back to 60. That time the symptoms didn't go away. They lessened but were still there.

He's trying to taper again, and I'm down to 30 mg now and feel worse and worse. My sed rate has been normal, so the doctor thinks it's from the prednisone. Does it mimic all the TA and PMR symptoms? I also am having a lot of hand and feet cramping.

Does anyone else have these two illnesses? I would be interested in your experience. I want off these meds! Anyone found an alternative approach that's helped?

God bless!