Collapse symptoms and conditions

Now it makes sense why doctors were so eager to prescribe Lipitor. Pfizer has been hit with a 2.3 billion penalty for illegal marketing promotions of 13 drugs that includes LIPITOR. They were awarding doctors free golf, massages, and resort junkets for "pushing" Lipitor, Viagra, Zoloft and 9 other drugs.

I suffered cardiac arrest in 2006 with the only change in my 51 y/o basically healthy lifestyle was i started taking 500 mg/day of levaquin four days prior to my collapse in front of my students in the classroom. I am a 4th grade teacher - I had suffered cardiac arrest at least three times before I was treated with Arctic Sun therapy to help recover. The heart catheterization afterwards showed no blockage in my heart. There was a good chance, in my opinion, that levaquin could have caused my cardiac arrest. Although not conclusive because I had a tooth infection which was the reason I was prescribed the levaquin and i was taking an said for the discomfort, the back of my mind always comes back to levaquin because i suffered the joint weakness i read in articles of other users of the medication. I also was reminded after the accident that a young person we knew of had died unexpectedly in her sleep a and she was taking levaquin. It makes you think it may have been the levaquin, but no actual proof could be determined by my doctors. However, I will never take this medication again, knowing there are so many other antibiotics on the market to help me.

I was prescribed Avelox yesterday for a nasty sinus infection. I took one at about 9:00 at night. I started to feel nauseous and my mouth would fill with saliva. My muscles started to cramp up. I could not function so I went to bed. My heart rate sped up. I felt like I was going to die. Then I started hallucinating. When I got up, I felt a bit better and realized I was experiencing side effects. Still feeling achy and with a terrible headache, I went back to bed. It seemed like I went through my whole life in my head. I felt like I was a fraud in everything I've done. Finally all that was left of me was a black void. I just did not want to exist. I thought I was having a total psychotic collapse. I fell asleep around 3:00 am and woke at 6:00 am to research this drug. It is 1:00 am the next day now and I still ache and have a headache. I realize that I just suffered a major reaction....and this drug is legal! It sucks.

All I can say is:

1 – for no “explained reason” my neck collapsed and I needed a life saving fusion operation to prevent my spinal chord from going any farther into the brain. I was told that I “should” have died. I did not. It was less than one year from starting FOSAMAX. and I had no other symptoms that would have indicated the neck would collapse. Kind of like DEAD JAW, but in the neck.

Thankfully, vIOXX (which (allegedly…) prevents bones from healing (and spines – do a google on “vioxx bone healing”) was not on the market at the time… and the operation did fuse (else death).

Go forward one year… a later total lumbar operation, (also going to be added to a lawsuit in re to FOSAMAX) causing the collapse of the lumbar spine was needed. Sure, before FOSAMAX (allegedly) did its thing, it was supposed to be an EASY, ‘no sweat” operation that would merely help my body geometry a bit with a simple procedure - sure one more year of FOSAMAX and the spine was now about ten times worse than expected. The surgeon was stuned.

Anyway, that (total lumbar fusion) - failed because (allegedly) along to the market comes vIOXX…. I am pursing the detail, but as FOSAMAX is now known to give many DEAD JAW and it now appears that my neck bones destruct – which are near the jaw decided to destruct. Further, FOSAMAX is showing to have more problems than DEAD JAW. Had FOSAMAX and vIOXX not entered my life, I would have merely had arthritis and had done fine except for some pain. My brother, having exactly the same arthritis, DID NOT have either “poison pill”, and has done just fine, by the way.

2 - They are now finding that FOSAMAX also tends to provide problems with long bones and people are breaking femurs (allegedly) from FOSAMAX. Nice huh? So, now what happens? I simply fell and broke my femur – or I am now realizing that I broke my FEMUR THEN FELL – another thing people are finding out about (allegedly….). It also should not have happened as I DID NOT HAVE OSTEOPOROSIS and had fallen many times before I took the FOSOMAX POISON and it imbedded into my bones (takes about 6-12 months). FOSAMAX took me down big time, vIOXX kept me down. Almost having died 3-4 times from operations that failed and complications - I did not die obviously, and will continue my pursuit of the truth – look for a web site in a month or two…..

3 – So, FOSAMAX caused/contributed (allegedly again I must say….) the broken femur, and vIOXX stopped it from healing. That is called the “double whammy” in recent vernacular. After several operations (and over 6 months of hospitalization; 8 months total) failing without anyone knowing why or expecting that (my overall health was just fine except for arthritis and it was supposed to be a routine operation), they were about ready to amputate the leg. Fortunately, an astute NJ surgeon 150 miles away just realized IT WAS NOT GOING TO HEAL, and patched it together with glue, thus saving the leg and walking for first time in more than ½ year.

4 – I am going to leave alone the issue of “stress fractures” as this is enough to digest for now… but watch out for this issue….

5 – someone mentioned this: -- > “Can Fosamx D 70 mg be the cause of Ecchymosis Petechiae, I have developed what looks like an "under the skin" rash, on the ankles and upward on the leg, sometimes dark and also gets lighter…”

All I can say is that I went from having TEXTBOOK just beautiful circulation in my legs (was sincerely told it should be in a textbook) to a lot of problems, including very similar to the above AFTER taking FOSAMAX for 2 years. That was another quick thing to happen. Readers can interpret if FOSO may have caused that.

6 – I shall not forget, also, the horrible aches and pains I had within a few months of having FOSOMAX. I just thought it was arthritis acting up. NO, now I know it was from FOSAMAX. My whole history fits like a glove…

In fact, FOSAMAX brought me down, and vIOXX kept me down (allegedly). Merck should not sell their wares when they know their bone “science” was not “science” but a fraudeulent, dangerous and even (vIOXX) killing poison(s)…. (allegedly….)….

FOSOMAX and VIOXX were the very worst things to have entered my life. I pity others who had them concurrently. I shall spend 2009 finding others in the same situation with bone – spine problems from either or both concurrently.

If you have have had a bone/spine destruction or healing problem and taking FOSAMAX and/or vIOXX at the time – please feel free to email me at badbonehealing@hvc.rr.com. I will be creating a Web Site to dialogue and share research on. These (bone – spine) are horrible problems from these two poisonous (allegedly…) drugs and the PUBLIC NOW NEEDS TO KNOW. I asked the courts to help, and they have not. So, I cannot be blamed for not being transparent and doing as I said I would do.

Thank You…

bones
badbonehealing@hvc.rr.com

Hi everyone,

i need to tell you about what just happened to me, because it seems most people are definitely not informed of all the possible side effects of prednisone - not only just relating to the dose of prednisone you take but also for how long.

I have been using prednisone for almost 14 years now, the doctors all tell me i'm unlikely to ever get off prednisone now because i've been on it too long. I know all about it's usual side effects (water retention, mood swings, thinning of all tissues including blood, acne, anemia, etc etc).

One side effect i was not advised of, not even in any educational material about prednisone either, was that long-term dependence can lead to Acute Adrenal Crisis. Which is deadly if not diagnosed and treated promptly. Thus i nearly died two weeks ago. I became rapidly ill with vague symptoms that i now know are symptoms of acute adrenal crisis. *THE ONLY REASON THE ACUTE ADRENAL CRISIS OCCURRED WAS BECAUSE OF LONG-TERM USE OF PREDNISONE*. Not many doctors will warn patients in advance of this. It is however, very very important that people are aware that long-term use of prednisone needs to be very carefully weighed with the benefits of using prednisone (i was started on prednisone in 1995 to treat severe Crohn's Disease).

Acute adrenal crisis can happen over weeks, months or years - in other words, it can come on so slowly that by the time you know there's something wrong you're already very very ill and in great danger.

I am very glad to have found this website and i hope you will all refer anyone who has any experience with prednisone to this site - education and knowledge is power - the power to stay alive.

(by the way, the treatment for acute adrenal crisis is to load up on prednisone - seems i'll probably never be free of this drug unless i can get my adrenal glands to begin working again (as prednisone "takes over" for the adrenal glands and they effectively go to sleep, and this is especially true for long-term use)).

My sympathies to everyone who has to go through the many nasty experiences with prednisone, especially the young children (I had to start it when i was 16). It really does mess with your body and mind, and in my case, became lethal.

Please pass on all your information relating to use of prednisone to everyone you can - it really is that important and seems to be the only way to avoid most of the disasters related to prednisone use.

take care everyone,
Linda
(Australia)

I had my left lung fill with fluid and collapse after radiation treatment for Breast Cancer. The lung was drained with Thorocentesis and I was hospitalized for a week and put on prednisone - 40 mg reduced to zero in 1 week. I experienced symptoms of heart attack as reaction to reduction from prednisone. When it was determined by enzyme testing in hospital that heart not damaged I was sent home with prescription of prednisone starting at 60 -10 days, to 40- 5 days, to 30 - 10 days, to 20-10 days. The cumulative effect of these doses was all the side effects mentioned by others, loss of emotional and physical balance, stability, swelling, moon face, insomnia, depression, crying, stomach pain, constipation, etc. I dropped myself to 20mg for 9 days but on the 8th day had recurrence of lung pain and feared possible fluid build up through tissues damage/leak caused by radiation - they are calling it pleurisy or pleural effusion. (It was also determined that I must be on constant oxygen and sleep on oxygen as my breathing capacity is below 88 off of oxygen.) Dr. found not enough fluid to drain without risk to damaging my diaphragm so upped the prednisone again to 30 for 14 days. Using pain and shortness of breath as a measure of lung condition I must not dampen pain now but suffer it to monitor my lung so as to avoid trips for constant X-rays. I continue to suffer from prednisone and it has disabled me so that my normal life cannot be resumed in any way. I want to get off of it, but after reading these reports, I am very worried - supposedly the steroid is allowing my radiated lung to heal, but if that is not happening I think the steroids are possibly more life threatening than the lung - in any case, what life? What other choices do I have to survive the damage done to me by radiation?

I am 37. My BP was around 160/95. My Dr put me on Lisinopril 10mg daily. My BP became normal almost immediately. I have been on it for over a year now and here is what I have noticed. I am CONSTANTLY tired and dizzy. Any thought of walking anywhere of any distance is horrifying because of the fear of collapse. I sleep over 10 hrs a night only to wake up exhausted. I am so sick of being tired. I just want to sleep my life away. This is no way to live. I am depressed all of the time. I can't even shop anywhere because of the anxiety which comes with it. i.e. numbness in arms, rapid pulse, faintness, hyper ventalation and just pure panic for no reason whatsoever. I can't control it. When I sleep, my fingers and hands fall completely asleep. They are dead. It wakes me up numerous times every night. I can't get good rest. I stopped taking Lisinopril a week ago. My BP is below normal now. My pulse is around 55 at all times. I have never had joint pain, just extreme fatigue. God willing, I won't have to take this med again, or any med. I forgot how I used to feel. I wasn't always like this.