Bad dream symptoms and conditions

I have been taking Lamictal for about 2 1/2 years now. I have been taking 200 mg for two years. I have experienced very few side effect. Except vivid dreams and not sleeping well. I have always had vivid dreams but there is one I have had since the medication it was so awful that I can't stop thinking about it and it makes me feel suicidal. I have had many ups and downs in my life but never thought suicide to be a positive option. I don't think I would do it but I can't stand these awful repetitive thoughts. I have had less and less energy in the last 6 months or so. I thought it was because I was working to much. I have quit doing most the things I love. I have always been a high energy person. So I thought it must be the Lamictal. When I had complained to my doctor he said that it sounded like depression and normally they would increase the dosage but he would decrease it if I wanted. I went to 150 and then 100. I felt awful just like I used to before the drug. So I went back up to 200 and at least I didn't feel so awful. So I increased it to 250mg and I started to fell less depressed. Sometimes I have taken to much in the past because I forgot I had taken it and repeated the does. That is when I had the first bad dream that has haunted me since. Then I started to forget to take my medication off and on and that is when the depression started. Now I took the 250 and I had another haunting dream. This drug really has been a miracle for me. I have never felt this stable in my entire life! In the past I was trying to self medicate but since the Lamictal I have quit smoking pot and drinking. I don't like alcohol and drugs anymore because I don't like to feel altered anymore. Most of the symptoms everyone has described are how I felt before Lamictal and I feel better since. I will never go below 200mg or above again without a suitable alternative. I still can't get rid of the repetitive thoughts on 200mg. Typical anti-depressants have the opposite effect for me. Has anyone found a suitable alternative. I have heard that other drugs for bi-polar such as Lithium and Depakote have a sedative effect and I don't like that. I want to be my normal energetic self!

Prescribed for UTI, 1 pill 2x day, actually Bactrim DS, which is 800/160 tabs. After 1 dose, next morning severe migraine with vomiting, nausea, chills, (I didn't take temp, but probably had a fever), loss of appetite, finally went to sleep for a few hours and was jarred awake by a bad dream (unusual for me) and couldn't go back to sleep thought I had drank to much caffeine. Had tight chest, but thought that was linked to my 130/90 BP...I thought I was having a heart attack. Followed by sleeplessness last night. Today, after 3 doses, I woke with a stiff neck and had a headache this morning which was made better by 2 Tylenol. Went to my GP to get on some BP meds. He must've thought I was crazy, but I wasn't leaving until I got something to make my chest feel better and theoretically lower my BP. I thought all these side effects were just me, but apparently not. I wish everyone the best in finding a better, safer treatment than this one.

In September of 2007 my then 13 year old daughter was put on Singular for mild asthma. At the time she was a straight A student, vice president of our school and a popular girl who's guidance counselor described as "the glue of her grade" because she was so well liked. In November she told me that she was struggling with advanced Latin and Science. She asked to drop down to on grade Latin so we did. In December her science teacher notified us that she had a C average. She told me that she thought she had ADD/ADHD and she couldn't keep up. At the same time she was having a lot of problems with friends at school and we just attributed it to being 14. 3 weeks ago we discovered that she is significantly behind in English and it was then that she told me that she is been having horrific night mares. She said that they usually involve someone killing her or her killing herself. She said that they were so graphic that she couldn't repeat it out loud. She also said that she would feel waves of anxiety that would come over her at school and she would act "witchy" to the kids in her class for no real reason. She said that sometimes when she is trying to do her homework she will read the same passage for 2 hours and still have no idea what it's about. She also said that the suicidal thoughts from her sleep happened during they day and that she had thoughts of her harming herself. Fortunately her pulminologist told us that this may be caused by singular and we immediately took her off of it which was 2 weeks ago. She has only had 1 "bad dream" not even a nightmare since. She had one anxiety attack 3 days after she was off it and she describes her moods as the "cloud lifting....slowly". Now, we have to pick up the pieces. Her grades have suffered, her friendships have suffered and most of all her self esteem is very low. I'm grateful that we found out the cause but I feel as if my daughter lost a year of her life and I worry that because Merck won't admit there are side effects we can't find out how long it remains in their system. Is anyone else concerned about the long term affect and has anyone pursued a class action suit to try to get this drug tested properly?

WOW Where to start. My 15 month old Daughter was put on it for "SUPPOSED" allergies which she don't have... But that's a totally different story. Anyways she was put on the granules. After taking if for about 5days I noticed VERY Significant side effects IMMEDIATELY. She would NOT eat for anything in the world which is odd because my 25lbs 15 months old (Mind you she was only 5lbs 4ox @ birth) was a Pigglet lol She also became VERY Winey & Clingy...She also began to have "Night Terrors' and when I say Night terrors I mean the full blown ones last about 20 minutes or so and the first one scared me to death I thought my little baby girl had went blind. The terrors started about Night 2. We took her off the Singulair before I found any of these Side Effect write ups and of course AGAINST Doctor's advise however I put her back on her Claritin. Her nose is drying up and Congestion is gone after rushing her to the ER with 104.2 fever and got her on Anti-Biotics & Albuterol. (Still another story lol) We noticed the next day a HUGE Difference is her personality and she was sooo HAPPY again. The first full day off the drug she slept through the night in her own bed WITHOUT a terror or even a bad dream. IT'S A MIRACLE I proclaimed that I had enough common sense after only 4days to get that mess out of my Daughter's Body. Needless to say she is a piglet again here only about 5 days after taking her off the med. and happy as a 15 month old should be lol

Hopefully this will prove to the doubters that there are genetic reasons for the variation of efficacy and adverse side effective when taking Montelukast.

I have several areas of concern (concerned citizen is concerned). One of the main areas is the reliability of Montelukast due to differences in genetics among populations. The cysLT1 (Singulair) receptor is a GENE. As I said before, it would be possible to predict those patients for which Montelukast would and would not be effective and those patients whose gene expression profile would cause them to have unwanted side effectives.

I have been looking for a way to give reasonable proof of that which could be used to convince your doctors that Montelukast is not for everybody. I happened to locate a researcher who had invented and patented methods for predicting drug sensitivity and efficacy in inflammatory disease. I have quoted below from his patent application. He intended to provide a method for determining efficacy and drug sensitivity for pharmaceuticals which include leukotriene antagonists - Montelukast.

Quoted from:

Methods for predicting drug sensitivity in patients afflicted with an inflammatory disease
US Patent Issued on December 12, 2006

Methods are disclosed for predicting the efficacy of a drug for treating an inflammatory disease in a human patient, including: obtaining a sample of cells from the patient; obtaining a gene expression profile of the sample in the absence and presence of in vitro modulation of the cells with specific cytokines and/or mediators; and comparing the gene expression profile of the sample with a reference gene expression profile, wherein similarities between the sample expression profile and the reference expression profile predicts the efficacy of the drug for treating the inflammatory disease in the patient.

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The field of pharmacogenomics measures differences in the effect of medications that are caused by genetic variations. Such differences are manifested by differences in the therapeutic effects or adverse events of drugs. For most drugs, the genetic variations that potentially characterize drug-responsive patients from non-responders remain unknown.
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In another embodiment, the invention is directed to a method for predicting the efficacy in a human asthma patient of leukotriene antagonists including, but not limited to, montelukast (a.k.a., SINGULAIR™; Merck, Whitehouse Station, N.J.), zafirlukast (a.k.a., ACCOLATE™, AstraZeneca, Wilmington, Del.), and zileuton (a.k.a., ZYFLO™; Abbott Laboratories, Chicago, Ill.), comprising: obtaining a sample of cells from the patient; obtaining a gene expression profile from the sample in the absence and presence of in vitro modulation of the cells with specific mediators; and comparing the gene expression profile of the sample with a reference gene expression profile, wherein similarity in expression profiles between the sample and reference profiles predicts the efficacy in the human asthmatic patient of leukotriene antagonists.

Many of the cells involved in causing airway inflammation are known to produce signaling molecules within the body called "leukotrienes." Leukotrienes are responsible for causing the contraction of the airway smooth muscle, increasing leakage of fluid from blood vessels in the lung, and further promoting inflammation by attracting other inflammatory cells into the airways. Oral anti-leukotriene medications have been introduced to fight the inflammatory response typical of allergic disease. These drugs are used in the treatment of chronic asthma. Recent data demonstrates that prescribed anti-leukotriene medications can be beneficial for many patients with asthma, however, a significant number of patients do not respond to anti-leukotriene drugs.

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The genes selected are those that have been determined to be differentially expressed in either a disease, drug-responsiveness, or drug-sensitive cell relative to a normal cell and confer power to predict the response to the drug. By comparing tissue samples from patients with these reference expression profiles, the patient's susceptibility to a particular disease, drug-responsiveness, or drug-resistance can be determined.

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/7148008-description.html

The inventor's website: Hakon Hakonarson M.D. The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

http://stokes.chop.edu/research/profiles/?ID=251

my daughter is 7 and has been taking Singulair for the past year. she has exhibited many of the symptoms described in these blogs.....she constantly complains of stomach aches and headaches. wakes up at night saying mommy i had a bad dream....(has not done this prior)....her closet door must be closed at all times (new to her)....she cannot have the bathroom door fully closed,again new to her.......she wakes up and does not want to go to school, new to her!!!!!! she also complains of itching, she itches herself to the points of opening her skin.......i had stopped the Singulair this past February and could not believe what a change in her behavior. she had to go back on it after asthma episode and once again i notice her change in behavior. i recently stopped it after she began crying saying, mommy i am a bad person, i did not brush my teeth tonight....the next day i heard the news of the mood side affects and threw the Singulair out!

I took it for severe epilepsy. I had two children on it fine, no problems. It put my epilepsy into complete remission, but for all the years I took it my life was destroyed by the emotional and mental side effects. Ended up homeless and in a domestic violence relationship, which I got out of when I stopped taking the poison pills. Coming off it felt like waking from a bad dream, but without epilepsy.

The effects which never went away were the dry mouth and no sweating, the enamal is stripped off my teeth. The mood swings and depression and exhaustion and memory loss and cognitive damage never went away. The loss of appetite and extreme weight loss(92lbs at 5'1" at first, 98lbs after tolerance) never stopped, nor did the constipation and resulting hemorrhoids.

Initial dose increases caused what I understand to be myoclonic spasms, which was a change in my seizure pattern, and other seizure pattern changes. The spasms came immediately after the final dose increase, were incapacitating in severity and lasted for about a half hour, and didn't fade for a week or two.

Did put epilepsy into complete remission.

my son was prescribed Singulair melts to put in food for allergies. on day two he has developed a cough that will not stop, a fever and was up before the sun this morning also a bad dream last night. after giving him Tylenol for the fever and Elysium for the cough it hit me that he just finished antibiotics so i checked the web for side effects. i was never told by our family doctor about ANY side effects. i am outraged and he will not be taking this toxic drug ever again. i know my experience is small compared to most of the other stories on this web page but these are our children, our pride and joy why do we want to give them toxic drugs for a runny nose or sneezing and in return we get sleepless, cranky, devil children with night terrors? i think something should be done to stop this drug from being given to any child. what kind of world do we live in? i am appalled at the doctors for letting this happen.

My six year old daughter started taking Singulair for winter allergies about 1 year ago. After a couple of months she woke up seeing floating bubbles. These were very real hallucinations. We were back and forth with specialists for about 6 months. After she was taken off of the Singulair in the spring, the hallucinations gradually went away. We did not notice the connection. She has been back on the Singulair for one week, and last night she woke up seeing ants crawling on the bed and on her. I am stopping the medication and contacting the doctor. I would really like to know if anyone else has had similar problems.

I have been taking Femcon for about 3 months now. I took Yasmin for about a year prior to Femcon, and my OBGYN had me switch because I had some bad cysts on both of my ovaries. After the first couple weeks on Femcon, I thought I was going crazy. I was an emotional wreck, I was having random panic attacks for no reason, I was lashing out at my boyfriend (we have been together for 3 years, and I have never fought with him the way I have been lately, and they are arguments that I start myself, over any and everything.) I had my period for the first 4 weeks of taking this pill, and when I was supposed to get my period, it didn't come. My breast have gone up a whole cup size (I went from a D to a DD....not something I needed or wanted to happen!) And I have put on about 7 pounds. This has been like a nightmare to me, and I didn't know why these things were happening until I found this site. I suspected Femcon may be why these things were happening, but I kept on telling mysef that was crazy, and I probably just needed psychologial help. I am so upset with my Dr. for giving me this pill. I feel like a guinea pig for this "revolutionary birth control pill." I don't recommend anyone to take it. I have been taking birth control pills for 10 years, and I have never experienced anything like this. It is like a bad dream. Thank you so much to all the other women that have posted their experiences on here, you have helped to saved my sanity and my relationship!! I am calling my Dr. tomorrow to switch to something else (probalby back to Yasmin).

Was prescribed Levofloxacin for a sore throat while on vacation in Thailand, 1 pill, 500mg, each day for 5 days.

After the first day, I caught what I think was traveller's diarrhea (my travel partner also caught it). However, the anxiety I experienced was tremendous. After 24 hours the belly was better but I had intense feelings of panic, and some of the blackest feelings I can ever imagine, like nothing would ever be right again in my world, no matter where I was, or what I was doing. I took all 5 days of the Levofloxacin, the last day was two days ago. It all culminated at the Bangkok Airport, on our way to Cambodia. We had a 3 hour layover and I was panicked, crazy and my mind was whirling at a million miles an hour, much like what I imagine an acid flashback would be like. It felt horrible, like my mental health was hanging by a string, only I didn't know what was going on. I've been looking forward to this trip for 2 years and all of a sudden I just wanted to GO HOME, only the thought of home didn't even comfort me. I was close to running screaming around the airport and so restless.

But it passed. And I was fine that night. Yesterday I was pretty good, except I had another panic attack last night that prevented me from leaving the hotel room for dinner. I managed to get through it by walking around and then falling asleep. Food still wasn't appealing, at all, though, but that could be attributed to the traveller's diarrhea. Had a bad dream, which seems pretty par for the course according to comments here on the board.

Today has been pretty good, food is back to being appealing again, no panic attacks. I hope that I will be experiencing no further side effects now that the drug has been stopped, but the feeling of being crazy scared and filled with black thoughts and wanting someone to make it STOP is one that I won't soon forget.

I wish everyone the best and wish that more people could post hopeful stories about recovering and feeling better.