Extreme loss symptoms and conditions

I've got to say that Mirena makes my hair very thick, and I have lost weight, not gained it...and I LOVE not having periods.

I have had mood swings, irritability, and stomach issues since having it installed in July'07 but no other problems what so ever, until a few months ago...ever since May'09 I have had nausea, extreme loss of appetite, and breakouts(very out of character for me). My husband had a vasectomy in May, and I plan on getting the Mirena removed next month. The ongoing irritability is definitely the biggest problem for me...it makes me very short tempered with my children.

I don't know why the new symptoms started a few months ago...maybe some kind of hormonal buildup...I am very sensitive to birth control usually, and Mirena has served its purpose well, but now I am ready to move on.

I think Mirena is like any birth control, it works well for some people and not at all well for others. I do not think it is awful, or terrible or anything like that...it just has to be the right fit, and all drugs have side effects. Good luck ladies!!

This is to serve as a personal warning to ANYONE taking
Effexor XR or thinking about taking it.

After my husband and I experienced HORRIBLE withdrawal symptoms within a week from coming off of our medication, and has continued for 4 months now. I feet compelled to inform people about the risks that this drug carries with it.

This drug helped my husband and I immensely while we were on it, but I just wish that I had been more knowledgeable about the risks of going off this medication so abruptly.

I understand that the medical professional that is prescribing you the drug is supposed to inform you that you are not to stop taking the medication abruptly (which is exactly what I was told). IN NO WAY was I told the consequences of NOT taking the medication.

So here are some of the symptoms that I experienced within the first two days (there are many more symptoms that other Effexor XR patients have experienced, but I feel that it is only right to list mine):

• Akathisia - a syndrome characterized by unpleasant sensations of "inner" restlessness that manifests itself with an inability to sit still or remain motionless.
• Ataxia – Loss of the ability to move the body with coordination.
• "Brain Zaps", "Brain Shocks," "Brain Shivers" or "Head Shocks" Descriptions include dizziness, electric shock-like sensations, sweating, nausea, insomnia, tremor, confusion, and vertigo.
• Cold Sweat – The skin is clammy and moist and you feel chilled. This is a reaction to a shock or pain as well as to fear and nervousness.
• Colitis – A condition where the large intestine becomes irritated from the use of the drug.
• Dehydration – An extreme loss of water from the body or the organs of the body as in sickness or not drinking enough fluids.
• Depersonalization - A feeling of watching oneself act, while having no control over a situation. (A sufferer feels that he or she has changed and the world has become less real, vague, dreamlike, or lacking in significance.)
• Diplopia – A condition where a person is looking a one object and instead of normally seeing just the one object he sees two. This is also call double vision.
• Disequilibrium - Dizziness, light-headedness and vertigo with a sense of losing balance.
• Dysarthria – The inability to control the mouth muscles when forming words so the words are not clearly spoken and heard.
• Gastric Irritation – An inflamed and sore stomach.
• Hyperhidrosis – The triggering of an excess of sweat being produced on the soles of the feet and/or the palms.
• Hypoesthesia – A partial loss of sensation or general loss of awareness.
• Influenza-like - Fatigue, lethargy, chills, sweating, headache, weakness and palpitations.
• Insomnia – Not able to fall asleep or sleeping for a shorter time than desired, thus not being able to properly rest and feeling un-refreshed. As a result, a person can become irritable, have difficulty concentrating and feel a lack of energy.
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome – A painful condition where the either the muscles or the nerves of the lower intestines, are not responding normally. This results in an alternating condition of diarrhea followed by constipation, back and forth.
• Mania – Unusually irrational, excessive and/or exaggerated behavior or moods ranging from enthusiasm, sexuality, gaiety, impulsiveness and irritability to violence.
• Mood Swings – An emotional shifting as from a state of happiness to a state of depression for a period of time.
• Night Sweats – With night sweats you become wide awake in the middle of the night shivering and cold and wet with your sheets/pajamas soaked in perspiration making it difficult to go back to sleep.
• Nightmare – Dreams that make you afraid or leave feelings of fear, terror, and upset long after waking up.
• Abnormal Orgasm – Unable to have an orgasm with normal sexual stimulation.
• Pain in Extremity – A painful feeling in the legs, arms, hands, and/or feet.
• Paresthesia - A sensation of tingling, pricking, or numbness of a person’s skin with no apparent long-term physical effect.
• Photopsia – A condition where a person sees lights, sparks, or colors in front of their eyes.
• Pressure of Speech – A condition where the individual cannot voice his ideas fast enough with the pressure of there being not enough time to say it.
• Pyrexia – Fever or the increase in body temperature that is usually a sign of infection.

Now some of you may be thinking that I might be overreacting, but I assure you that I am not. Quite the opposite actually, I feel that there are probably more symptoms that I am leaving out.
When I went online to research the symptoms that we had been experiencing, there was little information that I could find. I went onto the website for Wyeth (the company that produces Effexor XR) and the only thing that I could find was, and I quote,

“When people suddenly stop using or quickly lower their daily dose of EFFEXOR XR, discontinuation symptoms may occur. Talk to your doctor before discontinuing or reducing your dose of EFFEXOR XR.”

Wyeth also states that Effexor XR is, and I quote AGAIN,

“ Effexor XR Is Not Addictive. Effexor XR and other antidepressants are not addictive. You cannot become addicted to an antidepressant even if you take it for long-term maintenance therapy. An antidepressant is not a controlled substance like a narcotic or a stimulant.”

I am very sorry Wyeth, but I disagree.

I stopped taking yaz 4 months ago and started taking Loestrin. I was on yaz for 2 years and after so many side effects I stopped taking it. It's been a week now that I've noticed my hair is coming out in my hands when I take a bath. I counted the strainds and it's around 30 to 40. I'm so worried because I love my hair what should I do. I've been on Loestrin for about 4 months.

Im 20 yrs old and started taking Yasmin last fall. i was on it for 7 months and finally stopped due to 15lbs weight gain, extreme depression, and nausea. i have been off it for 6 months and haven't had my period since. i have also had extreme loss of metabolism, ive never had this much difficulty losing weight, after all the cleansing diets and working out every day! i would love to know when this crap will finally be out of my system so i can get back to having a normal, healthy life. if anyone has useful input about thins let me know!

I got my Mirena put in a little over two months ago but problems since. I have been on my period for almost a whole month now and I'm having icky brown discharge that stains all of my clothes. I feel like I am constantly tired and I fall asleep all the time at work and other places. The acne is crazy. My back and chest are now covered with it. It's so embarrassing. I have a pressure down in my lower stomach area that almost feels like my ovaries are swollen. I just got over a UTI(or at least that's what I thought it was since it hurt to urinate and I had to go frequently with not much coming out and I had some of the other telltale signs) that I think was caused by the IUD because I've never had one in my entire life. And although I got the UTI about ten days ago, and have been taking medicine for it I STILL have some tenderness down there. It hurts to do anything sexual. I feel like I am falling apart. Does anyone know if all of the symptoms that I am experiencing are related to the IUD? The swollen ovaries are starting to worry me as is the extreme loss of blood. HELP! :(

Can Statins Cause Chronic Low-Grade Myopathy?
Statins (hydroxymethyl glutaryl coenzyme A reductase
inhibitors) are highly effective drugs for reducing serum
cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels.
Clinical trials have shown that they also reduce risk for
coronary heart disease events, coronary procedures, and
stroke by about one third (1). Millions of people in the
United States and worldwide are being treated with statins.
In clinical trials and in clinical practice, statins have proved
to be remarkably safe.
The one notable side effect of statin therapy is myopathy.
A small fraction of patients who are treated with
statins will develop severe myopathy (2). In the worst cases,
severe myoglobinuria, acute renal failure, and even death
can occur. The incidence of severe myopathy is low, perhaps
1 in 1000 patients (2). Predisposing factors for severe
myopathy appear to include advanced age, relatively low
body weight, female sex, certain medications, use of multiple
medications, multisystem disease, and acute illnesses
or major surgery (3). If statins were avoided or used in low
doses in these circumstances, it is likely that the incidence
of severe myopathy could be greatly reduced.
Less severe forms of myopathy undoubtedly occur. In
some patients, fatigue and muscle pain and weakness develop
with moderately high serum creatine kinase levels
but not acute renal failure. In these cases, the myopathy
resolves when statin therapy is discontinued.
Still more patients report various muscle symptoms—
fatigue, pain, and muscle weakness—but have normal creatine
kinase levels. These symptoms probably are unrelated
to statin therapy in many patients. In middle-aged and
older people, muscle, joint, and tendon symptoms are very
common. Naturally, if a patient takes a medication that is
believed to produce muscle problems, symptoms are often
attributed to the medication. On the other hand, the major
controlled clinical trials have not detected a higher prevalence
of muscle symptoms during statin therapy versus placebo
(1). This failure of detection has generally led clinical
trialists to conclude that statin-associated myopathy with
normal creatine kinase levels essentially does not exist or
that, if it does exist, it cannot be detected above the “background
noise” of muscle symptoms in the general clinicaltrial
population.
Many physicians in clinical practice nonetheless believe
that they can identify a subset of statin-treated patients
who have a unique set of statin-related muscle symptoms.
Some patients clearly relate the onset of muscle
symptoms to initiation of statin therapy. These symptoms
may abate after discontinuation of therapy, only to reappear
when statin therapy is restarted. The number of such
patients is not large, and thus it may have been impossible
to identify them in large clinical trials.
In this issue, Phillips and colleagues (4) report on a set
of studies in four patients who had muscle symptoms during
statin therapy that resolved during placebo use. Quantitatively
measured muscle weakness also resolved during
placebo use. Muscle biopsies were performed in three patients
during statin therapy and then during placebo use.
Several pathologic changes were seen on biopsy specimens
obtained during statin therapy: increased lipid content of
mitochondria, fibers that did not stain for cytochrome oxidase
activity, and ragged red fibers. The authors suggest
that these patients had statin-associated myopathy with
normal serum creatine kinase levels.
Despite the study’s small size, we cannot dismiss these
observations as random variation in muscle structure.
However, these highly suggestive results are clearly preliminary.
The number of patients was small, and all appropriate
controls were not used. Nonetheless, this study is novel
because it used quantitative measures of muscle strength
and muscle biopsy to address the question of myopathy
with normal creatine kinase levels during statin therapy.
To be confirmed, the current data would have to be
extended to many more patients in whom muscle symptoms
are closely correlated with statin use. Reproducibility
of symptoms during therapy and symptom resolution after
discontinuation of statin therapy would be necessary. A
definitive study would have to be carefully designed and
executed. It would need to be double-blinded and placebocontrolled
and include sufficient numbers of patients to
provide a valid statistical comparison. In addition, investigators
would have to carefully consider the appropriate
selection of patients. The development of a registry of candidate
patients at multiple sites could facilitate a multicenter
study.
Is a carefully controlled, sizable study of this type
worth the investment of time and effort? To date, no evidence
indicates that prolonged statin therapy leads to permanent
muscle damage or progressive myopathy in patients
with normal creatine kinase levels. Controlled
clinical trials attest to the general safety of statins, and
symptomatic side effects appear to be limited to a relatively
small proportion of treated patients. In addition, no therapy
prevents or treats statin-induced myopathy, short of
withholding the drug. On the other hand, statins are being
prescribed to millions of people, and are usually continued
throughout the patient’s lifetime. It is certain that statins
cause myopathy in some patients. For these reasons, a valid
argument can be made for a more extensive study of lowgrade
myopathy in patients treated with statins.
In the meantime, physicians should recognize the great
benefit of statin therapy in high-risk patients and their
documented safety for most patients. For high-risk persons,
the proven efficacy for preventing cardiovascular disease
outweighs the unlikely possibility of permanent muscle
damage. Phillips and colleagues’ preliminary results
certainly do not provide adequate information on the spec-
Editorial
www.annals.org 1 October 2002 Annals of Internal Medicine Volume 137 • Number 7 617
trum, scope, or prognosis of myopathy with normal creatine
kinase levels during statin therapy. For these reasons,
prescription of statins for eligible patients should continue
despite the current results. Moreover, before discontinuing
therapy, physicians should carefully evaluate any patient
receiving statins who reports muscle symptoms. In most
cases, the symptoms will be found not to be consistent
with chronic myopathy, and often they will not be related
temporally to statin treatment. High-risk patients in particular
should not be deprived of major cardiovascular risk
reduction just because they display symptoms not clearly
documented to be closely related to statin therapy.
Despite these comments, the actions of statin on muscle
metabolism and structure deserve further investigation
to clarify the confusing area of low-grade myopathy apparently
associated with statin use in a few patients.
Scott M. Grundy, MD, PhD
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas
Dallas, TX 75390-9052
Current Author Address: Scott M. Grundy, MD, PhD, Center for
Human Nutrition and the Departments of Clinical Nutrition and Internal
Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas,
5323 Harry Hines Boulevard, Y3.206, Dallas, TX 75390-9052.
Potential Financial Conflicts of Interest: Honoraria (from Merck &
Co.; Pfizer, Inc.; Bristol-Myers Squibb; and Bayer); Grants (from Merck
& Co. and Pfizer, Inc.)
Ann Intern Med. 2002;137:617-618.
References
1. Executive Summary of The Third Report of The National Cholesterol Education
Program (NCEP) Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation, And Treatment
of High Blood Cholesterol In Adults (Adult Treatment Panel III). JAMA. 2001;
285:2486-97.
2. Staffa JA, Chang J, Green L. Cerivastatin and reports of fatal rhabdomyolysis
. N Engl J Med. 2002;346:539-40.
3. Pasternak RC, Smith SC, Bairey-Merz CN, Grundy SM, Cleeman JI, Lenfant
C. ACC/AHA/NHLBI clinical advisory on the use and safety of statins (1)
(2). J Am Coll Cardiol. 2002;40:567-72.
4. Phillips PS, Haas RH, Bannykh S, Hathaway S, Gray NL, Kimura BJ, et al.
Statin-associated myopathy with normal creatine kinase levels. The Scripps Mercy
Clinical Research Center. Ann Intern Med. 2002;137:581-5.
© 2002 American College of Physicians–American Society of Internal
Medicine
Editorial Statins and Low-Grade Myopathy
618 1 October 2002 Annals of Internal Medicine Volume 137 • Number 7 www.annals.org

I am 26 years old and was prescribed Yasmin to help deal with Polycystic Fibrosis. I have been on it 6 weeks and immediately saw weight gain, but this past week I have had an EXTREME loss of breath. I am a teacher and began breathing as if I had just run around the block after I simply walked down the hallway. I haven't seen that anyone else has mentioned this, please let me know if you have

After reading the above stories, I now wonder if lisinopril is causing some of my symptoms of fatigue & strange muscle pain. I've been on 10mg/day of lisinopril for about a year. It got worse after I had anesthesia to remove a mole on my hip on June 1, 2006. I then got almost "paralysis" with extreme loss of energy and pain, especially in the left shoulder and right foot/calf/knee. I wonder if the combination of lisinopril with anesthesia caused this loss of energy. Before the surgery on 6-1-06, I could run perhaps 15-18 mph, getting a pulse of 140-147. After the surgery (I was told no heavy exercise for about 9 days afterwards), I would run at full blast, hitting a maximum of maybe 7 mph, and it was if my legs were in molasses and I could barely get my pulse up to 110! After nearly 2 months since the surgery, I can get my pulse up to 147 or so, but still have some "muscle" disturbance issues where I feel "constrained." If this does not go away soon, I'll lose another 10 pounds and stop the lisinopril!

It's good to know I'm not the only one freaking out about this.

I've had difficulty sleeping, night sweats, extreme loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, depression, confusion, crying, nervousness, itching in legs, extreme paranoia; just to name a few.

I was concerned I had symptoms of HIV because they are very similar to what effects I'm experiencing with doxycycline. I'm only taking 2 doses of 100/day. Crazy stuff and scary.

Started taking Ominicef 300 mg. for upperrespitory infection
and Bronchitis on Dec 17,2005 dose 2 300mg tabs daily,
I developed extrime diaharea, which continued for 5 days, I was supposed to take this for 7 days, on the 5th day I developed an extemely sore throat which felt like a boil in my
throat, went back to the Dr. and had blood tests done I had
noticed a coffee ground effect coming from the stool, the test
showed that I was bleeding internaly and there was blood in the stool. The doctor had me stop taking it, I have just started to have normal looking stools, but this extreme reaction has
left me very weak,due to the extreme loss of fluid and blood

Taking this for blockage in the ear. Taking 2x per day for 3 days now, and it's not helping at all.

Experiencing EXTREME loss of appetite, and sleep deprevation. Only positive about it is the high feeling, and quite frankly, I'm tired of feeling like I'm at a rave all the time. I never thought I'd say that.