Freshman year symptoms and conditions

My son began taking singulair when he was 6. About that time we were hading into the school years. He was labeled as a "special" child from that time on. Impulsive, aggressive, angry, anti-social, etc. He had a hard time focusing at school and every day was a battle. About 5th grade, after 3 schools, he was diagnosed with ADHD. I never, ever thought that it could be this medication. He was on it for about 4 years off and on during allergy season. I transferred him to a private school for children with behavioral issues and as time went on through therapy and special schooling it seemed to get better. I look back now and see that our "good" times were when he finally went off it for good. The beginning of his Freshman year was great! He had a 3.58 GPA, making friends and finally happy. The unfortunate thing is now that puberty has really kicked in, we are back to the old behaviors but much worse. Impulsive, angry, anxious, afraid of the dark, afraid of death. Violent thoughts, impulsive and very unhappy. I can see now that my son never had ADHD. He was misdiagnosed because thier were no warnings at that time. I don't think it ever "goes away". Even after years of being off of it. Something with the puberty hormones is re-triggering this behavior. IT IS LONG TERM!!!!! Even after discontinued use. Please, please keep an eye on your children. I AM SO ANGRY FOR HIM!! Also, for me. Special school $400 month, psychologist appointments, $300 month, my poor Son in a dark place I can't get him out, PRICELESS. . .I want my Son just to be happy. Thank you all for sharing your stories, it gives me strength that I need for him.

My 17 year old daughter started Singulair last July for Asthma. She is brilliant and scored in the 99% on the ACT college entrance exam. She won 3 scholarships totaling over 60,000 and earned 27 college AP credits while still in high school, volunteering for the Red Cross, singing in choirs, and playing the lead in her high school musical and 3 plays. She was funny, sweet, and had many friends.
She left for college 3 weeks after starting the medication and saying she was breathing better. Her grades were terrible, even though I was able to check to see she went to class every session, as posted online. She became very depressed, withdrawn, staying in her dorm room. She was sleeping up to 20 hours straight without waking up. She didn't call her friends when she came home and only wanted to sleep. She was like a different person. She was so aggressive that she tried to run out in the middle of the night and attacked me when I tried to block her way, to the point I had to call the police. They diagnosed her with new onset major depression and ADD. They started her on Zoloft for 2 months and she got much worse and was removed from Zoloft as a result. She said she was too tired to stay awake even in class. We had a sleep study done for Narcolepsy and it was negative. Until reading these posts, I didn't connect the Singular. Everything I am reading is so familiar, it makes me feel ill. I can't believe I didn't know, I am a nurse. The guilt is horrible. I hope to get my daughter back, but she lost all her scholarships and only managed to pass 16 hours in one entire year of college. I can't afford to send her back without the money she lost. They even put her on a one time only probationary period to ever get Federal or State Financial aids and loans again. Singular had to be to blame. I am simply thankful my daughter is still here, she was very suicidal. My heart breaks for those of you that lost your children to the side effects of the drug. We have to get the word out by each filing a complaint to the FDA, and filling out adverse event forms.
Please don't let Merck get away with this. We need to act, even if your child was one of the lucky ones and is back to normal now.

In September of 2007 my then 13 year old daughter was put on Singular for mild asthma. At the time she was a straight A student, vice president of our school and a popular girl who's guidance counselor described as "the glue of her grade" because she was so well liked. In November she told me that she was struggling with advanced Latin and Science. She asked to drop down to on grade Latin so we did. In December her science teacher notified us that she had a C average. She told me that she thought she had ADD/ADHD and she couldn't keep up. At the same time she was having a lot of problems with friends at school and we just attributed it to being 14. 3 weeks ago we discovered that she is significantly behind in English and it was then that she told me that she is been having horrific night mares. She said that they usually involve someone killing her or her killing herself. She said that they were so graphic that she couldn't repeat it out loud. She also said that she would feel waves of anxiety that would come over her at school and she would act "witchy" to the kids in her class for no real reason. She said that sometimes when she is trying to do her homework she will read the same passage for 2 hours and still have no idea what it's about. She also said that the suicidal thoughts from her sleep happened during they day and that she had thoughts of her harming herself. Fortunately her pulminologist told us that this may be caused by singular and we immediately took her off of it which was 2 weeks ago. She has only had 1 "bad dream" not even a nightmare since. She had one anxiety attack 3 days after she was off it and she describes her moods as the "cloud lifting....slowly". Now, we have to pick up the pieces. Her grades have suffered, her friendships have suffered and most of all her self esteem is very low. I'm grateful that we found out the cause but I feel as if my daughter lost a year of her life and I worry that because Merck won't admit there are side effects we can't find out how long it remains in their system. Is anyone else concerned about the long term affect and has anyone pursued a class action suit to try to get this drug tested properly?

I was diagnosed with allergy induced asthma in my freshman year of high school. I was given Advair for a couple of weeks to help deal with a major attack I experienced. After seeing an allergy-asthma specialist I was told to continue with the Advair until I could get my AIA under control. I was also placed on Singulair, Flonase, MaxAir AutoHaler (for emergencies), Acuneb (also for emergencies) and I was already on Zyrtec and an eye drop Patanol. At the time my Zyrtec and the Astelin I was on were not enough to treat both the allergies and asthma. I also began taking allergy shots. I was an athlete playing fast pitch softball, conditioning P.E. including weight lifting and running, and I was also doing aerobics in my regular P.E. class. I swam often, was an active outdoors man, rode horses, and ate a fairly healthy diet. I could not figure out why I weighed 145 lbs at 5'2. My doctor said I was healthy and that I shouldn't worry about my weight but now that I am a 19 year old 5'3 weighing 130 lbs I realize that my weight gain was not normal. Although I do not play softball right now, I practice belly dancing and yoga. I often go hiking, running and swimming and I walk about 30 minutes a day to get to and from classes at LSU. I worked hard to keep a healthy diet, and exercise often so that I would not gain the dreaded freshman 15. It took me two years to get down to 130 lbs and I never attributed my weight gain and inability to lose weight to my Advair until I was off it for almost a year and then had to start taking it again to deal with a flare up. In less than two weeks I had gained almost 10 lbs and was feeling miserable.After I got to college, I would often go for runs to help keep myself in shape. I got to the point where I had to quit running because I was always short of breath and I would have severe asthma attacks. I was on all of the above mentioned medications and often on Prednisone for sinus infections. I also experienced the dry cough and the tightness of chest. I experienced almost daily headaches -some were attributed to stress but I am not sure if the Advair caused the others. I was also very groggy, dizzy, and EXTREMELY moody. I disliked the way I was feeling while I was on Advair and took myself off it earlier than I was recommended. Since then I have been feeling a lot better and I am able to control my occasional flare ups with zyrtec and flonase and occasionally singulair if I feel my asthma acting up. I got dizzy easily for a few weeks after I took myself I was not told by my doctor that I needed to rinse my mouth out to avoid thrush, nor was I told about the possible weight gain and some of the other side effects. I am going to stop taking Advair unless I absolutely need it and I am not going to stay on it for long, especially if I start feeling like I was before.

I have a 15 yr old son, that has been on Singulair for 4 years. He used to complain to me about not being able to sleep through the night, he couldn't concentrate at school. He was an honor roll student. Then he became short tempered. He also isolated himself, and no motivation. He would not want to do anything. He was depressed. Does not want to shower or anything. He has absolutely no self worth. He would talk about having these problems and I would just say to him that maybe it was just the changes going on. New school, changes to his body, it's just those times where changes and expectations are harder. Some handle it better than others. Than everything just continued to go down hill. My son is very intelligent, so when mom did not listen, he decided to self medicate. Went online to try find out what was going on. Tried to find what would help him. He learned quite alot about pharmacology(spelling???) at any rate he then started experimenting with other drugs. Prescriptions drugs. He just wanted desperately to be happy. I found out about this. He was getting into trouble at school, grades fell. So we then sought counceling and then a psychiatrist. They put him on all kinds of meds. Prozac, Ridilin anti pshychotic drugs. You name it my son has probably done it. Now my son is an addict. I now hear all these things about Singulair don't know what to think.??????? I have had him a drug treatment program of which he was kicked out for overdosing. Then, the hospital of which just put him on more drugs. I don't know what to do. He has asthma, when he does not take his Singulair the asthma really kicks in. I know this we are going to look for something else to treat his asthma. I need input. My thoughts are simple. I believe that it is possible that the problems my have started with Singulair but then my son took a step further. I think to try to survive. But in the mean time he is now an addict and I'm scared of whatever permanent damage that may have occured over the years. Are there any other parents out there, that think their teenager might be going through the same problems? If so PLEASE reply to this message.

My 20 year old daughter suffered with asthma since the age of two. She took theophylline for years, but once singulair came out and we switched it was like a 100% improvement! However, looking back , what I thought may be teenage angst, I can see the correlation between the way she wrote her poetry and the use of singulair. She was never suicidal but did have some symptoms of anxiety and sleeplessness. She ended up having such bad sleep problems in her freshman year of college, that she could not sleep at all for 6 days in a row. She was admitted to the hospital when she was found in her dorm in nothing but a bathrobe and slippers, crouched on the floor, non responsive and in a state that they thought perhaps she had overdosed on drugs! After clearing all drug tests, she was admitted to a state mental hospital and put on risperdal for two weeks. She eventually came out of the hallucinations and the anxiety went away. After being released, she had to withdraw on a medical leave from school and eventually weaned herself from the risperdal and stopped taking the singulair. Her follow up appointments with psychiatrist were positive, they changed her diagnosis and said she was not, after all, bi polar and they did not renew her prescriptions for any anti-psychotic meds or any bipolar meds. Since then , she has not had any recurrence of sleeplessness or any episodes like that. I have started a ******* page so that we can all keep in touch with our stories and give the support and feedback in one community. Please go there, its free,******

I am a freshman in college and have been on singular since tenth grade. I was supposed to take 10mg of singular every night but i was always forgetting, it was not until Junior year that i started taking it everyday on time. Then Junior and senior year i got really depressed, and i would always cry to myself. At the end of senior year i got diagnosed with ADD and started taking focalin, for awhile i felt better. But lately i have been feeling depressed 4 days out of the week and i hate it because its making my freshman year difficult. If this really is because of the singular, how long will these side effects from singular wear off?