Drastic change symptoms and conditions

I am fifteen years old and I will be sixteen soon. I have tried fem con before but never really stuck with it because I kept forgetting to take the stupid pills. Well after having my period for four months straight I got back on the pill because its the only chewable one they had. (I'm terrified of swallowing pills, even if they are real small) I'm almost through my first pack and it has been THE WORST month of my life. The first few pills gave me morning sickness. I never through up because I would always eat crackers, drink water, and try to breathe it out. I still feel sick to my stomach for a little while after taking the pill. I have to eat something to get the awful taste out of my mouth.. I have gained TWENTY POUNDS in like three-four weeks. i went from wearing a size 2/3 pants to wearing a seven. Although that is not very large the drastic change is not good. Well in the past two weeks I have lost many friends because this pill makes me angry at little things. I get annoyed at little sounds and certain peoples voices. I am going into a very deep depression and have suicidal thoughts because no one wants to be around me. I am taking this pill to regulate my period and its not even working anymore! I hate this pill and everything that it is doing to my emotions and body.

I was prescribed Paxil and started out at 10mg. then they gradually increased it up to 60 mg a day. Later on they added I think it was 200 mg of Wellbutrin. I was on Paxil for I think 2.5 to 3 yrs. What happened was I was so out of it I didn't know what day it was. The HMO would have to call me to remind me to come in that day for my doctor visits. I slept most of the time and was just worthless. I didn't care about anything much and didn't have the energy to do much of any thing. This was a drastic change in me and my family hung in there with all this. I actually drove which is not a good idea at all. But when they put you on this you don't realize how bad you are on this stuff and once you are on it for so long then you are either a captive at home not able to do anything or you try to take back some part of your life. You also can't just go off of it cold turkey at 60 mg. I tried and it got bad and went back on it. After I got really bad all I did really is drive to therapist appts or to nurse practitioner who managed the Paxil and Wellbutrin. After being on 60 mg of Paxil and Welbutrin for awhile/months and I was so out of it, that is when they said we need to back me off of it. I think it accumulates in your body and I think you can kind of have an overdose in a sense. They didn't really monitor it that well and took their sweet time recognizing it. But they didn't say anything about it. I think that is what happened to me but no one at the HMO said that. Instead they got me scared that I was going to run out of therapy sessions allowed while on Paxil and that is why they were going to back me off of Paxil. I guess another patient had that happen to her and they didn't want that to happen to me. I then say my therapist very rarely while I was backing off of the Paxil. She acted like I was ready to handle everything on my own. I had no idea that suicidal thoughts were in my future when backing off of this drug. But they sure knew it, a lawsuit in California had been filed the month after I started taking the drug and it was all about the lack of disclosure about the withdrawal issues. First I got off of Wellbutrin and then they slowly backed me off of Paxil. It was physically wrenching. Throwing up and diarrhea all at the same time. Painful is not the word. I have given birth to two kids and pneumonia and this was much worse! Chills, tremors, I felt sick all the time. This went on for months. When I talked to nurse practitioner they pretended that it was no big deal. I wasn't sure what was happening. I finally got pissed off about the whole thing and never called them back and they didn't follow up either. Not even therapist. They hoped I would go away quietly which I did. When you are in the throws of this and you know who did this to you, you really don't want any more of their harmful help. It took at least a year to feel better. There is this uneasy weird feeling and zinging noise that lingers for a long time. But my memory is a fraction of what it was. My short term memory is very difficult. I know that Paxil was responsible for this. How do I know? Well when you are on Paxil and if you have a recall on a bad incident and you start to emotionally react to it, Paxil will offset it by making you sleepy. It literally targets your emotional reactions and those thoughts connected to it. It tries to disconnect the feelings from the thoughts. These disconnects also disconnect your ability to remember other things. Even after I got off of Paxil I noticed that I would get sleepy when I thought of stressful things. It has taken me about three years and I am talking better and can remember many more words. I talked very simply for so long since I couldn't recall basic conversation. It targets emotional responses and I got to a point where I was really numb about a lot of stuff due to the constant tapping down by Paxil. I feel like it disconnected those connectors to your brain that talk to each other. My family made jokes about me and how simple I got and how I couldn't remember anything. They are worried that I have alzheimers disease or will get at this rate. I could not work on Paxil at those high doses I was on and while I was withdrawing. I found that afterwards my memory was so bad that I missed so many simple things that I would have never missed before. I am concerned that my memory lapse will cause a big mistake that may hurt someone. I was out of work for so long. I volunteered to keep myself busy until I got too bad. It would keep me busy. I also noticed that while on Paxil I was uninhibited and said things that hurt folks and I was unable to monitor myself like normal and couldn't determine what was not appropriate to say all the time. I had an emotional disconnect to myself but also to others. This hurt some folks and cost me a job. My memory is so bad that I have to write down important things if I really want to refer to it again. I also have given up on going back to school. I couldn't test well at all. I can not remember what I did 5 minutes ago let alone a chapter I have read. I am only 52 now and I feel so much older due to this. I suffer from Fibromyalgia and IBS. I was so upset with my doctors at HMO since they didn't warn me of the withdrawals. When they put me on Paxil I was adamant about not taking an addictive drug. My family has had a history of addiction and I was not going there. I know how bad it can get. Paxil's withdrawals is very much like the withdrawals that addicts go through. I was devastated by not only how doped up I was on Paxil but also all time I wasted on it and with the year just trying to withdraw from it. Then the time just trying to get some of my memory back to function. I am mad that there is no way I could go back to school to better myself. I am mad that no one warned me of any of this and if they would have I wouldn't have taken it. How many of you would take a drug knowing that you memory would be messed up? Not many. Certainly not me. My daughters know what a tyrant I am about drugs and alcohol. This is not something I would have opted for if the whole truth were known. They certainly don't warn you that your memory will be like swiss cheese afterwards. No one in my family has had such memory loss. No alzheimers disease. In fact quite the opposite is the case. My grandmothers were very clear at older age, so menopause can not be a big factor and beside this happened before menopause. Also grandfathers and father were very clear getting older. My family noticed a definite change while I was on and after Paxil. The irony was that when I started to go back to HMO for regular care which took me a long time to trust them enough for them to do even that, someone at HMO had put in my automated chart that I was allergic to Paxil. They won't say who put it in either. I was not allergic to it but they are now saying that I had a bad reaction. But what I say is after seeing so many "bad reactions" on websites like this I am convinced that this is more than isolated cases but rather the norm of what happens to patients who take it. HMO doesn't want to admit wrong doing. Paxil seems to have kept a lid on it. Besides how do you measure a bad memory and how do you prove it after the fact? You are getting older and who is to say it isn't genetic. But I was on it for maybe 2.5-3 years. I was so out of it I don't remember how long I was on it. I also was suicidal when coming off of it. I even called a crisis line since I couldn't trust the HMO. I was irrational. For those of you still on it I think you are doing more harm than good. I don't believe all the facts have come out about the side affects from these types drugs. Who would be doing the studies? Certainly not he drug companies, FDA is a joke and if you think the attorney generals are doing much think again. Yeah a couple states like CA an NY they did settle on suits about suicide for kids but they settled quietly. The doctors who prescribe these drugs also are in a catch 22 like my HMO. They don't want to be linked in this and will avoid it too. What attorneys can afford to go up against all those high powered attorneys for those loaded drug companies? Not many. No one is actually dying from this and that is another reason there won't be much done on this either. Fortunately today we can hook up online and share our stories and this is the first step in documenting what is really happening to patients.

Be so careful coming off of these drugs. Give yourself plenty of time to get normal. Make sure you are seeing a therapist you can trust and is trustworthy. It takes an alcoholic about a year to rid their bodies of the toxins that have built up in their tissues. I do believe that is also true of Paxil. Be kind to yourself and get good support while doing so. It can be a very lonely physcially and mentally anguishing time. Think of yourself like someone who has had a brain injury or stroke. You need to practice to get things to reconnected as best as possible considering. You will never be like before you took Paxil but with time and patience and hard work it can get better or you can develop ways to compensate or work around or cope with such memory loss. Financially this can be devastating and it was for us. The loss of income and finally a bankruptcy. We paid dearly for taking this drug. It can be very frustrating and you have to look long term. I think it is very easy and cheap for HMO's to pass out pills rather than schedule needed appointments for therapist and other alternatives. Before they started to take me off of Paxil I was warned by my HMO that I had exceeded my number of appts allotted for a 2 or 3 yr period. So I may end up without any therapy while on Paxil. That is the reason why they decided to back me off. I had apparently used something like 32 appts in two or three years and I was getting close to not being able to have any for a long while. This was interesting approach since by then they knew that suicide was linked with Paxil. They will put you on Paxil and they will leave you high and dry without at therapist if you actually use one regularly and use up a normal amount of visits. I have very little compassion for HMOs. What was amazing was listening to the nurse practitioner tell me if these drugs don't work there are lots of other ones we can use. These are the easy going drug pushers of today and they prescribe these drugs without much thought. They make it cheap and easy and they will swear to your face they aren't addictive but are basing it on very little research. They regurgitate what ever the drug companies tell them. The cost cutting with HMO's is almost frightening. I also have problems sleeping too. I wonder if the drug messes up your serotonin levels since it does make you sleepy so much of the time and when you are off of it the brain is fried from all that artificial serotonin that it no longer knows how to manufacturer it well. I think that is what maybe causing my Fibromyalgia since this is a condition where you muscles never repair themselves at night due to lack of sleep is one theory. I was always a deep sleeper before all of this. I think there maybe a connection.
Finally depression. When you can't remember what you did 5 minutes ago or simple things it gets more than frustrating, you get depressed at how limited you are now. The pain from the fibromyalgia is constant and that too is depressing. I wish someone could put together the data on this to prove the link to memory loss and how it has affected our serotonin levels.
The only way you can stop companies is to sue them. Government won't do it really. A class action suit might work.

Wow! I'm on day 4 of my new nuvaring. Last night I curled up in bed and contemplated 15 different ways to kill myself. That was after I kicked my cat across the room so I wouldn't go belt my sassy daughter across the face. And this was suppose to EVEN OUT my mood swings. I'm 40 and going through a lot of internal changes emotionally, some of which can be blamed on changing hormone levels. I was hoping to alleviate the mood swings (which compared to this aren't that severe!) I'm removing the ring today after reading many of the posts on this site. I can't wait to just be my regular moody self-lol! Oh, and I have to apologize to my cat who hasn't come near me since yesterday. :(

I just had my Mirena removed after 3 years.. I had it removed on Thursday, 2/12/08. The last 3 days have been WONDERFUL without the Mirena. I can finally sleep without taking Ambien. I am not eating constantly. I am much more happier. I was soo miserable and depressed before. My hair was falling out, my face was constantly broke out. I went from a size 10 to a 16 in less than a year. The only thing I have noticed since the removal is extreme fatigue. If I sit on the couch for more then ten minutes i want to fall asleep. Which is actually okay for me after relying on sleeping pills for so long. Overall I would NEVER get the Mirena again. I hope this helps people. And please know there is an end in sight. Within 3 days I feel so much better and my family has noticed a drastic change in my attitude, which is what matters most :)

My 5 year old daughter was started on Zyrtec about 10 days ago (Dr.s orders) and WOW... not good. We can not see any changes in her allergies but her moodswings are way off. Last nite she told me "daddy that clear medicine I take now, makes me feel busy and funny". When we ask her why she is acting rude and being ugly, she says she doesn't know. She has been taking Singlar for about 2 months and Nasonex for about 1-2 years. HELP!!!!!

I have been reading all of these posts and have another question. I hope that someone can help. My daughter, 8 years old, has been on Singulair since she was 4. She is normally a very happy girl with a wonderful disposition. For the last year or so, she has been having trouble getting herself to sleep at night. She says that she hears things in her head such as ringing or "noises". A few hours before she knows it's bedtime, she cries and when we ask her why she's crying, she can't give us a reason. We initially thought that she was crying for no reason because she didn't want to go to sleep. I remember reading about the side effects of Singulair causing mood swings, etc., but her's are not violent mood swings. Just very emotional and has a hard time coming down from the "episode". I'm at a loss...I have not talked to her doctor yet about it, but have told her that we will make an appointment this week to discuss it with him. My husband suggested that maybe it sounded like she was having a panic attack or anxiety attack. I hate to label her as that at such a young age. My mind now goes back to the side effects of Singulair and maybe this is to blame. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! Concerned Mom

Hi Ive been on Femcon FE for one month now. I am 20, 5'1'' and weigh 100 lbs. I have not gained any weight at all, nor experienced any nausea. The first 2 weeks I felt like I had some mood swings, the third week I broke out in horrible acne... However, my period lasted about 4 days and was soo light I almost forgot that I had it. I never got any cramps either. Now, I am on my second month, first week, and my acne is starting to clear a little bit.. However, I have battled acne for a lil while and - as I have been told by doctors - it takes your body time to respond to all these hormones. If you are having problems with acne, just remember that usually things that are supposed to clear acne will break you out for about 2 months before it starts clearing you up. It's your body's response to the drastic change going on inside. I would suggest seeing a dermatologist and using some topical gel (Differin).. it has helped mine a little bit. I don't think I'll change BC because I would rather my body just get used to one type and just stay on it....
good luck ladies! Just remember, don't get too frightened by all these postings because every woman's body is different so not everyone will experience the same side effects.

I failed to mention this in my previous postings.My 7yr.old ,who had been on singuliar for along time,had been having chronic stomach pains.Since being off,I noticed a drastic change in her stools.They went from grayish in color, back to the normal brown.Previously ,to going off Singuliar,blood work had been done to find the cause of the pain.Her blood counts were fine,but her cholesterol was high(266).High for a 7 yr.old who eats a balanced diet.I'm meeting with her doctor tomorrow to discuss many Singulair issues with him.I will have her cholesterol checked in the near future.Waiting for Singuliar to be out of her system awhile before having test done.

I have been following this forum ever since the news broke and I feel compelled to post my 4 yr old's experience with Singulair. He has been on it since before he was 2 yrs. I called my child's asthma dr on 3/28/08 with my concerns and his staff had already had a meeting about the news and he advised me to go ahead and take him off of it.
We always wrote off his overly-sensitive behavior to normal toddler tantrums, but when the behavior continued past toddler age, we began to wonder. He also would sob, talking about death a lot and how "God was going to miss him" People said, "Oh, he's just trying to get your attention!" But I knew that 4 year olds should not have such things weighing on their minds. He also frequently complained about leg pain, which I brushed off as growing pains.
We have noticed a TREMENDOUS and immediate difference in our son since stopping this medication. It brought me to tears, realizing the drastic change and wondering how I could not have put two and two together before. Some examples of the changes: He no longer "freaks out" over small problems (he dropped something the other morning and I braced myself for the usual screaming, but instead he calmly picked it up) He is able to sit down and concentrate on an activity (like coloring) He can express his emotions w/o screaming. No more night terrors. The list of changes I've noticed actually goes on and on, but the point is, it is very clear that his mind was in an altered state on that medication and that is entirely unacceptable to me.
As a side note, I told my child's peditrician that his asthma dr had taken him off Singulair and she acted very surprised saying "Oh, it's been on the market so long, and these couple reports in the media probably don't mean anything." My question is, how long has it been on the market for children and how many drs have been lead to believe that these side effects couldn't possibly happen and therefore ignored their patients concerns? I'm convinced that had I brought my concerns about my child's behavior to his dr before, she would have probably prescribed an anti-depressant or ADD medication and never once considered the Singulair to be the problem.
My heart goes out to other families that have been affected and pray that the medical community will respond according in warning people about the potential effects of this medication.

First of all, finding this website and these stories is a divine intervention! I have a 3 year old that started on singular for food and mold allergies about a week and a half ago. Immediately he complained of an upset stomach which the allergist told us may happen but that was it. The days ahead he became a totally different child - angry, overly emotional, moody, and the only thing new was the Singular. His brothers saw the drastic change too. Thank goodness the worst was over our Spring Break. I am in a support group called MOCHA(Mothers of Children with Allergies) and thought I am going to email everyone my story and see if anyone else has experienced what we had. ( My Dr. also told us he had no complaints on the drug and it was safe. I decided after 5 days, that I was taking him off of it to see if his personality would return. Well, with in a day only off of it, he was not as agitated and less angry so I knew it had to be it.) Almost all of the responses were negative and people were so relieved that it wasn't in their head and that it was the drug. Since just yesterday, one has also decided to take her son off of it. And I am sure many others are going to follow even to just see if by being off of it for a week any of their old self returns. This drug at least for children should not be prescribed!

Oh my god!!!! My poor daughter. My daughter Karilynn has been taking this drug for about 8 months now. She is 2 1/2 years old now. All of the sudden she had a drastic change in behavior, sleep and eating patterns. She began with sleep problems. She would wake up in the middle of the night screaming that the green monsters were after her. I chocked it up to night terrors that weren't explained. Then she started waking up screaming that her "bottom" hurt but would point to her stomach. She quit eating, cried all the time, started acting out randomly. My little girl who had never had discipline problems started randomly hitting and biting me. It wasn't even when I would discipline her for something. She would literally come up and bite me out of no where. She throws huge tantrums now. The daycare lady even asked me if something was going on at home because she was doing strange things there also. Not knowing what was wrong (but trusting my mother instinct that there was SOMETHING wrong) I started to think that maybe she was being abused. The night mares, the random pain.... I even had a breif moment where I thought my grandmother was hurting her. I want to throw up thinking about that now. I took her to the pediatrician, who ran every test imaginable to "rule out any physical reason" that could be causing all of these symptoms at once. Test after test came back negative. I actually have the number to the psychologist that does "play therapy" sitting in front of me because we were seriously terrified that someone was hurting her. Little did I know it was us!!!! I called tha asthma dr. yesterday after seeing the news story and he told me that my concerns weren't really valid and that it sounded like she was being a "typical" two year old. That really made me angry. After reading all of these accounts there is very little doubt in my mind that it is the medicine. It all makes sense now. Halleluah if it is such a simple fix!!! I was worried my daughter was being ABUSED!!!! What an unimaginable feeling for any parent!! I quit the singulair last night against the asthma doctors "urging" and gave the daycare lady a heads up. Its sad to say but I pray this is all that is wrong with my little girl!!! If someone files a class action suit please let me know. Also if there is anything more I can do to make sure someone else doesn't go through this let me know!!!!!

I like to live my life with facts, not speculation and drama. My child is on Singulair and doing fantastic. I remember the trips to the ER when I did not know if my child would live or die. Of course when I saw this report, it caused me some concern so I did some research on my own. Did you know that suicide is the leading cause of violent death in New York State, the United States and the world? In 2002 in New York State there were 1,292 suicides which exceeded homicides by 32%. The statistics show that 1 in 10 teenagers plans to commit suicide. The National Center for Health reports a 10% suicide rate in kids 15-24 years of age and 4 male suicides for every female suicide. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among those 15-24 years old.

So now we have 1 child in New York that has committed suicide that just happened to be on Singulair, and it is Singulairs fault? Show me the proof. All I see is one distraught mom who is trying to find blame for her son’s tragic death. Is there only half the story being told, a trend I have noticed in journalism these days. Let’s face it, life happens. I am NOT on Singulair and I have had melt downs, thrown things across the room, been depressed over things, cried, and even for the past week have been having some crazy dreams. I remember as a child putting notes on my room door telling my parents how much I hated them. I remember as a teenager thinking my life would be better if I were dead. I remember my child being cranky and fussy before she was on Singulair, gee maybe she was teething. The term “terrible twos” has been around a lot longer that Singulair. Let’s face it, we have turned into a society of people who always want something to blame. I think it is time people start taking responsibility for themselves and accept the fact that sometimes life just happens. Take accountability for your own lives, and stop trying to blame everything and anything.

I also live my life by reading internet blogs with a grain of salt. These blogs are public forums and places where anyone and everyone can post. How do you know that all these posts are real? Remember the day when kids made prank phone calls for fun? Now they have the internet and can post pranks on these blogs. How do you know that a competitor to Singulair is not posting in order to fuel the feeding frenzy? How about a registered sex offender or a felon in prison? There are a lot of “sick” people in the world and yes, they have access to the internet too. If you are hanging on every single one of these posts as being true and real then I feel sorry for you. The internet provides anonymity and it is easy to create a fictitious identity and a fictitious story. That is probably why if you do a search for “internet safety” you get 15,700,000 hits.

Until I see proof, I am not going to take my child off Singulair. The CDC reports that in 2002 there were 1.9 million visits to the ER for asthma and 4,261 asthma deaths. If I did stop my child’s Singulair, and she died in the ER from as asthma attack, whose head does that fall on? The media?

My 9 year old daughter has been on sigulair since she was 5. She just recently started having trouble with concentration and behavior. She is always sad and cries alot .She is an honor/gt student but just recently has been having trouble with her school work.She has also begun to hurt her brother and talks about how she wishes she was dead.We are really concerned and she began counseling. Her nuerologists says it could be depression but im thinking i should take her off singulair.She has had headaches,stomach pain,depression ,mood swings and weight gain.

My 6 1/2 year old son has been taking Singulair for 6 weeks, and while it has helped with his asthma, the side affects with this medication are too much to handle. He isn't able to sleep through the night, getting up 4-5 times, sometimes more. He's complained of severe stomach pain and leg pain. He's experienced loss of appetite, and has no concentration. Often we get nothing more than a blank stare from him. His teacher has expressed concern over the drastic change in him since going on Singulair. He is not able to pay attention, cannot complete his work and has become disruptive and aggressive. He's fatigued, and has been more emotional than ever. I stopped this medication 2 days ago and he is already sleeping better,and is more relaxed. I am researching alternative treatments for his asthma, and would warn against using Singulair for children.