Ethnicities symptoms and conditions

I posted a story on January 16 about my 16 year old daughter who turned out to have Factor V Leiden. She went on Yaz and nearly died a few weeks later. Factor V Leiden really is very common. Especially if you have Scandinavian blood or red hair. But it affects all races and ethnicities at lower levels. If you want to read more, the New York Times had a good article on February 24, 2008. It was about the decision whether to get a genetic test before going on birth control. B. A.

PLEASE REPLY! ok i wrote on this board about a month ago, and i was complaining about all the horrible side effects i was having.....however things have gotten much much worse since then, and i must admit that i have been bad. very bad. i am secretly winging myself off of the steroids b/c I cannot handle the depression and not being myself anymore... I've been on Prednisone for a year now and started winging myself from 15mg when I last wrote on here to now 10 mg... my hair is falling out in HUGE clumps, and I am NOT overexaggerating when I say I am going bald... does anyone know if this could be from tapering the drug, or would you say it is probably because of my condition possibly returning from tapering the drug too low???? I just want to know if IMMENSE hair loss is affiliated with steroids...I have not seen anyone else mention anything.

I have been a migraine sufferer for over 13 years and have run the gammut of medications to prevent and deal with them. My mother took Topamax a couple of years ago with disastrous results. I didn't realize, but I guess she was so loopy and forgetful that it was enough to cause my grandmother and stepfather to perfom an "intervention" to get her off of it. So, here I am a couple years later starting it myself, wondering if the side effects are worth the trade off. I'll be honest and say that I love Coke. I mean, loved. Carbonated drinks of all ethnicities taste like slimy metal now. How disappointing. And considering that if I went a day without drinking a Coke, I would get a wicked migraine, I've resorted to putting Crystal Light Energy (Wild Strawberry) in my water to give me the needed caffeine.

I've also noted tingling in my face, kinda like numbness. Nothing that is earth-shattering, but noticeable. I get dizzy a lot. I've also lost about 5 lbs since starting the medicine. And today, I could not find the word "prescription" in my mental warehouse. Not a difficult word on a normal day. I've only been on Topamax for a week though. I'm going to give it a good month to see if the side effects dissipate. But if I get any stupider, I'm going to have to go another route.

I started on advair in 2001 for about 2 months, and all was good. I started back on 250/50 in late 2005, until March 2006. I take no other meds except advair. I've noticed hardening of viens in my neck which went away when I stop my dosage. My liver has been giving me trouble as well. The doctors say it's not the drug. I've totally stopped using these meds. My symptons are subsiding. I feel they don't know enough about the long term effects of the meds. I'm african american and as we know most of these drugs have varying side effects on different ethnicities.

I was on Alesse for four years and felt I had reached maximum bloat, so decided to discontinue the pill altogther this fall. Unfortunately, my acne problems surfaced again (after a year and a half after a six-month course of accutane). My skin got really bad and was getting oilier and oilier. I thought I'd better get back on the pill again to get my skin at least somewhat under control. I also considered going to my derm and ask for spironolactone to help with my skin's over production of oil. While doing research on BCPs that were purported to be good for acne, I landed upon Yasmin, and asked my OBGYN for it and she prescribed it to me. Yeah! It's been a godsend.

I started around the holidays this past December and it addressed my oily problem within the first week of taking it. And it doesn't make me bloat! I swear I've lost 10 pounds of water weight that I was carrying before. I still have to keep a lot of attention to my skin to control breakouts, but not being so oily helps out a lot.

My only complaints are with the diuretic effect, I'm up in the night having to go to the bathroom, sometimes as much as three times. And if it's rather early in the morning I can't get back to sleep. I'm a little moody, but it seems to be the case with birth control pills. The moodiness is nothing excessive. I'd be a lot moodier if I had my old icky oily skin back and had to go back on Accutane.

I have not experienced the fatigue or other negative side effects that people have mentioned here. In fact, it seems that all the possitive side effects that Yasmin was purported to have have worked for me.

I'd be very upset if Yasmin was taken off the market. If you find that a birth control pill is not working for you, go back to your doctor and try another kind. I remember a friend in college who had started taking the pill and she had terrible side effects, like bad headaches, terrible moodiness, felt like her heart was palpitating, and I told her to go and get it switched. Evidently the one that she switched to was perfect because she's been on it ever since. Works out perfectly for her, no bloating, etc. Maybe a little crabbiness, but seems hard to avoid that one.

At any rate, I've been very happy with Yasmin. As birth control pills go, it's practically perfect for me.