Cats symptoms and conditions

I just turned 34 and I am a woman. I have struggled with mild asthma from early teens. I was always able to control my mild asthma with a rescue inhaler as my asthma was triggered primarily by cats/some dogs. However eventually that faded away and I was in control as long as I wasn't around cats. At age 31, I had my daughter (she is now 2 1/2), I rarely had asthma symptoms during my pregnancy and before. However about 1 week after my c-section I had to go to the ER because I couldn't breathe. They thought maybe I was having a pulmonary embolism from the previous c-section surgery. Fortunately I wasn't, but unfortunately for whatever reason, my asthma had been triggered (even if I wasn't around animals). My doctor put me on a Advair, another rescue inhaler, and ZPac. It helped right away.

I noticed a big difference in my ability to breathe. However 2 1/2 years later, I'm still on it. 250/50 once a day. I've tried going off of it several times but I'm unable to breathe. I don't want to be on a steroid long term, but I also have to be able to breathe after about 2 days being off of it. It's like gasping for every breathe. Not fun at all. The side effects I've had are hives to anything cold, itchy skin, stiffer feeling joints, occasional mouth sores, lots of phlegm (coughing up phlegm especially in the morning). I've never suffered from leg cramps or depression from Advair, in fact prior to having a child I was on Lexapro for anxiety and after being put on Advair my depression/anxiety has gone away. In fact, I've lost weight (30 Lbs) and am now down to the same size I was in college! I've asked two different doctors my OBGYN and Family Doctor if it's safe as we are planning for another child. They say yes. My OBGYN has said if I can't breathe I'm not going to be able to carry full-term. Which I guess makes sense. My Family Doctor said you can use Advair only as needed as it is not a bad drug to go off and on again (unlike antidepressants where you should never just stop them cold turkey). He said (he also suffers from asthma) that asthma can be triggered by stress (and my life has been extremely stressful over the last year).

Is there anyone who has had similar side-effects? Do you believe the benefit of Advair outweighs the negatives? I'm wondering if there is a better non-steroid drug that I can take that is SAFER for pregnancy and for my future. Open to suggestions...

I'm so glad I found this website! I am 28 years old, and have only been on NR for about 2 months.....everything was fine the first month or so. Really didn't notice any changes. The past two weeks have been awful. I was really surprised to read about some people having nasal problems....I live in Arkansas and it's spring, so I just thought I'm finally developing allergies, but it makes more sense to me that it's NR, since I've never had drainage and sneezing like this. And I don't think it's allergies because my eyes aren't itchy or watering like they do when I'm around cats (which I'm definitely allergic to).
The other main side effect, like most people was weight gain. I've always had a fast metabolism and I can pretty much eat what I want. My weight stays around 125, and I'm a size 6. If I gain a pound, usually I just eat really healthy, drink lots of water, and maybe exercise, and I'm back down. But the past two weeks, I'm up to 130 and the scale WILL NOT BUDGE!!! No matter what I do!! I am drinking so much water, thinking it is water weight, but that didn't matter. I tried working out EVERYDAY, which I never do, and that didn't help. Cut out all sweets for a day and that usually makes a huge difference. Nothing.
One other think I noticed is that my skin is drier. I have dry skin anyway, but my skin looked awesome when two months ago. My dermatologist had prescribed a skin regimine that worked great, but now it doesn't seem to be as effective.

So tonight I took NR out. I'm SOOOOOOO glad I've figured out what the cause is before I gained any more weight. I expect to be my good old self in about a week.

I've only taken two birth control methods (the other was the pill), which completely killed my sex drive. So hormones are not good for me. Has anyone tried Para-Gard? It's an IUD with no hormones that is good for 10 years. My husband wants me to try it.

Hi,

I began taking Singulair for allergies, 2 week's ago. For the first time in my life, I am suffering insomnia. I am waking up at 4.30am / 5am. This has only happened since I have started taking this drug.

After finding this site, I have realized that this distinct side-effect of Singulair is not worth my continuing on this medicine.

S.

I have been on Temazepam 45 mg. @ bedtime for over a year, about 3 months ago it stopped working. This week my doctor stopped the Temazepam and put me on Seroquel 50 mg. @ bedtime. The first night I woke every 2 hours with BAD nightmares! So I tried two more nights just in case it needs a "working in" period: Well I still wake every two hours like clockwork and the dreams are so so real! I wake myself up talking! I don't know how much longer it will take (if ever) to get into my system. I just want to know if anyone else is having this problem and if I should call my doctor? All help would be appreciated.
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I've been using NuvaRing for over a year. It's very convenient, but I have continued to experience extreme breast tenderness (this is much reduced during the week of my period after I remove the ring). When I get up to go to the bathroom at night (when I'm not wearing a bra), I actually hold my breasts up with my hands because they hurt from the movement of walking around. The nurse practitioner at Planned Parenthood told me she'd never heard anyone mention this symptom and it was probably not related to the ring, so I ignored it for a long time. However, after finally doing some online research, I'm switching back to the pill.

Wow, that's all I can say. I started suffering with allergies pretty bad this March. Terrible headaches and ended up with two sinus infections. My doctor, after doing a sinus x-ray, sent me to an allergist who did a scratch test and a needle prick test with 28 shots. I am allergic to dust, dust mites, some trees and cats. He said that I should just do Mucinex and Nasonex. I've been noticing that my pulse rate is up and flutters. I wasn't sure what would cause that. I monitor my bp pretty regularly since having to get off of bp medicine due to a severe adverse reaction from that. I just assumed I was going to have to go back on bp med to control rapid pulse even thought the bp was in the normal range. This whole medicine thing is maddening. I am going to try and not take it tomorrow and see what happens. The weird thing is I use the Nasonex in the morning but the rapid pulse doesn't show up until the evening. Could Nasonex still be the cause??

I have been on Lisinopril for about 2 and 1/2 months for borderline hbp. About 135/85. I have two cats which have always have caused some allergic reactions but I had that controlled with an air purifier. I really haven't had any bothersome symptoms until about 3 weeks ago when I noticed that I was wheezing during the day (while away from the house, so I couldn't blame the cat allergies) and I was getting very short of breath doing everyday tasks and just talking to people. Then I started noticing a strong post nasal drip and a lot of congestion during the night. To the point where I sounded like something from the Excorcist, my breathing at night was rattly and wheezing. It suddenly occured to me that all of this could be developing side effects from the Lisinopril. But I didn't want to give up so I started taking Claritin at night and in the morning to relieve some of the exasperated allergy symptoms. That worked for about a week, but then I would wake up coughing and finally last night the wheezing got so bad that I thought I would need to go the ER. Today the coughing started pretty badly and just taking my dogs for a walk was taxing and I started getting really tired and developing a headache (which never happens to me). After researching Lisinopril and now reading everyone's posts and symptoms and obviously experiencing this terrible cough and wheezing, I have made up my mind to go off this terrible drug. I can't live with this. I am only 42 yrs old and I feel like I am an 90 year old with emphysema. Bye bye Lisinopril.

My daughter is 2 months shy of her 8th birthday. She has always been a very tiny girl compared to her entire class. She has had chronic asthma since she was an infant. Honestly, I thought we would not see her 4th birthday due to her asthma. Singulair causes many of these reported side effects as Hailey has experienced many.

However, due to the fact that she can't breath without it I tried to self medicate her by lowering her dose. Since she is smaller than most we tried cutting the 4mg tablets in half and started her off at one half every other day in the morning with breakfast. Then as she got used to it slowly ....we started to increase her dose. Now at almost 8 years old she weighs 45 lbs. and is 3 foot 8 inches tall, still the shortest in her second grade class. We now give her 1/2 of a 5mg chewable every morning and she does great with little to no side effects and the best part is her asthma is manageable. Hailey does complain sometimes of side effects (headaches, stomach aches, arms tingling) but without the Singulair she needs her treatments 2 times per day along with her inhaler and suffers to just make it through the day.

She still needs treatments if she is exposed to allergens like cats, dogs, outdoor pollens, to many milk products in one day, etc. Sometimes I take her off the Singulair for a day or two just to give her body a break. I sympathize with many parents but never got my asthma doctor to bring up the idea to lower her dose. My regular pediatrician said it couldn't hurt when I suggested we lower her dose, and it worked for our daughter!

I started taking Symbicort 4 weeks ago. I'm an active person, eat well and I'm in good shape. I caught a cold a week after taking symibort. It seems that as my cold got better, I didn't feel like I could breathe any easier. Since I starte taking it, I've been real fatigued. I wake up very tired and I'm sleepy all day. I stopped taking it yesterday. I fell better today. I went back on Advair until I can see the Doctor to try another medicane.

This medication should be taken off the market. I went to my Dr. and teh Emergency room for them to tell me I was not having a reaction. My heart was racing to over 110 while my normal resting heart beat is 66. I was trembling inside my body and hands. The worst was the tightness in my chest that felt like anxiety. I could barely breath. I have never had anxioty so they wanted to give me something for that. But what about the other symptons, swollen tough, bruising and sleeplessness. None of it was worth it. I also began seeing cats in my house. I dont have cats. Scary, painful medication and I am extremely worried that DR.and the Medical companies are not fully aware of how dramatic and common these side effects are. Thier site doesnt list out many of these like trembling, high heart rate and intense anxiety, which is very concerning. If you are feeling any of the symptoms here and they are bothering you demand that your Dr. listen and perscribe a new medication if needed. Good Luck and thanks to all of you who shared. I thought I was going crazy.

About a week after I started Wellbutrin, I noticed some skin irritation on my eyelids and around my lips. I had just started dating a new guy, and we spent a lot of time testing whether it could be his aftershave, his cats, his laundry soap, etc. I've been putting up with this weird face itching (and my legs seemed itchier than usual, too, though they are prone to dry skin) until I abruptly stopped the wellbutrin about three weeks ago when I broke my wrist. Amidst the misery of the wrist, I did notice that my lips and eyelids had stopped bothering me. Once I was off the pain meds, I started the Wellbutrin again and sure enough, the itching/tingling has returned with a vengeance. Now that I think I've pinpointed the cause, I'm going to stop the drug again and see if the itching goes away.

I've also bean more headachey than usual and have noticed my stomach being queasy on occasion. I had increased the dosage from 150 to 300mg, but had to reduce it again because of frequent nausea.

My daughter is 5 years old and has been on singulair for 1 week. i have already noticed a dramatic change in her behavior. she has become irritable, mean, nasty, and emotional. she has had me in tears on a daily basis. she has turned into a monster. we will be calling the doctor in the morning!

It was nice to find this website, finally figuring out a reason why I get my yeast infections, headaches, naseau, pain on my left breast bone, fatigue, mood swings, etc... I always thought it was just me, but I'm now thinking that maybe it's not. I've had recurrent yeast infections ever since being on Yasmin (I've been on it for over 4 years) and my MD has never mentioned it could be the pill. I finally started seeing a connection between the two when I started tracking what happens to me when I miss taking the pill (ALWAYS a yeast infection). And it got me to thinking that maybe there are other women out there who suffer from the same thing. Also, at some points I actually thought I had serious mental/health problems b/c of my consistent headaches, fatigue, and mood swings. I used to be really active up until I was 19 when I started on Yasmin, and it went downhill from there. I guess I just thought that this was just my normal grown up self (I know sounds kinda lame). And I've totally experienced the lack of sex drive, it seems I'm only interested the week before I get my period or when I'm on it.

Hyper, anxious, weight gain, high blood pressure: I started taking Singulair in January after having some kind of allergy reaction to either the cats or something else. My GP suggested that I take it every day -but I'm quitting today. I have been so hyper the last three weeks and feeling -not well. It's like I'm off filled with dread and anxiety. Last week I ended up in the hospital with heart attack symptoms and with incredible anxiety,hyperness and high blood pressure! I never had any of these symptoms before then. I am healty cook and eater, a non-smoker, and was within 25 pounds of my normal weight for a 56 year old. Yes, it's gotta be the Singulair. It's the only medication that's changed. J. Haggerty

I have been taking Singulair since I was 15, and am now 23. I've been taking it for asthma. No side effects as described, and it's helped my living situation where I live with cats, of which I'm heavily allergic.

My thoughts on this? Go talk to a doctor and not trust some ridiculous forum like this. This place is just a concentration of people complaining, and you SHOULD NOT take this place as fact for how bad/good a medication is.

Oh, and if you've decided that the doctors are working with the drug companies and both just want to make money, please, take a double dose of this mind-altering, crazy, untested drug Singulair and put your head under a moving car.

I was put on Advair about three years ago after I had an asthma attack - I'm allergic to my new wife's house pets ( Dog and 2 Cats) Until then I had never had an asthma problem. I have not experienced any attacks since, I'm 51 years old now and the only side affect I have noticed from taking Advair 500/50 is that if I cut myself or bruise myself it takes much longer to heal. A razor cut will stay for weeks, it will continue to look like a small bruise or a small cut - I have an appt with my Doctor after reading about the new FDA warning "increased risk of death associated with their ingredients"

Methylpred was administered by injection to one of our cats at our local small animal hospital, to help change his mood and discourage him from biting his tail. Upon returning home, the cat behaved as though partially sedated, lying quietly in an out-of-the-way location. Because we expected some change in behavior, and because we have several other cats in the house, we did not pay particular attention to this cat. During the second night, between 24 and 36 hours after the injection, he died. He exhibited no signs of convulsion, vomiting, or sounds of discomfort. Although moderately overweight, this cat appeared in good health. We suspect heart failure, following increased blood pressure.

I did not like the effects of the steriods that were prescribed to me for my asthma so I looked for a more natural way to ease my breathing difficulty. RespirActin is a liquid herbal treatment for when I am having difficulty and RespirActin Tea is what I consume a couple of times a week to maintain repiratory health. Ask your local health food store for what they would recommend. Getting rid of my two cats was not an option. It has been a year and I have not returned to the doctors for any reason.