I can explain symptoms and conditions

I know there are times when people need medication to help them with depression, anxiety, etc. but I really think there are better anti depressants out there. I found effexor HORRIBLE! it was a b**** to get used to, and i was so dizzy, tired, anxious and just felt horrible for a while.
After my body got used to it, it was alright, but trying to get OFF effexor was even worse! i have never experienced anythign like that. I felt SO depressed and anxious and DIZZY and this carried on for about two weeks. I felt trapped. I even took some work off while getting off it because I couldnt' function properly at all. Also, my sex drive went down to zero. I'd defintely reccommend trying out a different anti-depressant than this one.

I've been on lisinopril for 6 months and have been having this odd gagging sensation. Even before I start coughing, sometimes the smallest thing -- or nothing at all will make me gag. Tonight, despite the fact I didn't feel at all naseous, I had to stop the car while driving in order to gag and vomit. I also have a mild heart burn sensation in my throat and I have never been prone to any kind of heart burn in my life. My lisinopril cough is very small and inconsequential, but is more scratchy feeling than a normal cough. That's the best I can explain it.

I mentioned the feeling of gagging to my doctor. I suspected it was lisinopril since the symptom started shortly after I took the drug. My doctor shrugged off my question re: could it be the lisinopril and I concluded it must be in my mind, or perhaps some bizarre mid-life symptom of a result of being overweight about 30 pounds.

I had taken Benicar and Micardis for high blood pressure a year ago and both worked extremely well and without a single side effect. Unfortunately, my health insurance company (Blue Shield of California) wouldn't cover either, so my doctor switched me to lisinopril.

Fortunately, if my doctor reports my side effects, the insurance company will cover Benicar or another drug like it, so I'm going to fax him tomorrow with the alternative drugs covered by my insurance.

Tonight's gagging / vomitting attack provoked me to look up side effects for this drug on the internet. Now my suspicions are confirmed and I feel very validated. Thanks to all who posted here.

I just went to see the Dr. last night after a full week of nausea and migraines. My simptoms are getting worse and worse every month that goes by. I started NR about a year ago; my Dr. said that he never heard anything negative about the ring, so I tried it. It made my periods very regular, but this past year has been very challenging. I'm constantly upset about something, felt depressed many times, extremely tired and had no sex drive... at all. I have to make an effort (physical and emotional) to have sex with my husband. I even bitch at him after sex becuase it was terrible for me... well, after reading these other experiences I can explain the changes in me. I'm taking this thing off RIGHT NOW!

I took a 500 mg pill last Friday and Saturday. Saturday evening I began to feel very strange, sweaty, disoriented, dizzy, weak. This came on quite suddenly, a few hours after taking the Levaquin. I went to lie down and asked my husband to sit with me because I felt so strange. I had throbbing pulsations in both legs and felt like the bed was moving underneath me like a wavy waterbed would, pushing up on my legs and eventually my whole body in different places in a rhythmic way. I kept thinking maybe I was just imagining this and tried to lie still to make it go away but the more still I was the stronger the sensation became. Other sensations came, like feeling something biting my foot or feeling a bug on my shoulder or side. I was twitchy and anxious because of this. It made me feel sort of nauseous. Then I began to have visual disturbances - things didn't look different in any way I can explain, but they seemed strange, shocking, weird. Things I look at every day in my room seemed disturbing, like numbers on a book or the pattern of a dress or even my sheets. I also began to feel I could hear things that were very far away and everything seemed turned up loud. It was like all my senses were on high. After some time it occured to us to check the Levaquin side-effects. I was relieved to have an explanation for what I was experiencing (not just going crazy) and laid down to wait it out. Next morning I still had some foggy, pressure sensations in my ears that affected my hearing, which went away after a while. Since then I've had lots of achiness and extreme fatigue off and on for the past few days. The congestion that sent me to the doctor in the first place is still there but much less. I presented with a slight fever on Friday but it was long gone by Saturday.

Searching my medicine cabinets I see that I have been prescribed this medicine at least once before and I think probably several times. I am a basically healthy person and I work out, but every so often I get a respiratory virus that seems to hang on forever. The respiratory symptoms go away but the extreme fatigue and pain hang on for maybe a month or two. Now I suspect that these last symptoms might be related to Levaquin if in fact I have been taking it at the end of these viruses. What typically happens is I go to the doctor after 10 days or so of a virus and he prescribes an antibiotic, assuming I guess that I have a secondary sinus infection. So I take the antibiotic and then just struggle with what I've been calling fibromyalgia for a few months. I haven't been paying attention to what antibiotic it was until this last experience.

I called the doctor's office to report my reaction to a secretary, but no doctor or nurse has been interested enough to call me back. Also, no one mentioned that I should avoid NSAIDs while on Levaquin, in fact we discussed my taking 800 mgs of Advil and he encouraged me it was okay to take that much. That was Friday, the day he prescribed the Levaquin.

Could this be the cause of the fibromyalgia? Should I file some kind of report about would happened to me? Does this stuff build up in your system? I don't know how many times I've been prescribed it but it might be 5 times in the past couple of years.

Thanks! M

I have been on Prednisone for a year and had most of the side effects already mentioned. At Christmas I started to get an ache in my rib area when ever I lay down and if I turned over to my other side the ache would fall to that side, the only way I can explain the feeling is, my lungs felt too large for my rib cage..and then the ribs felt tender. A few weeks later I sneezed and a muscle in my back went into a locked spasms and I had to have oxygen to help me breath.

Over the months I still had this strange tenderness in the rib area, a chest x-ray showed my lungs were fine...now this tenderness has worsened and my muscles go into spasm as and when they feel like it...My doctor says it is inflammation of the muscles between the ribs and has changed my NSAID without any results so far...has anyone else had these symptoms ? I'm on 5mg a day now from 15mg for Atypical rheumatoid arthritis.

Good grief! All I'm looking for is something on Calan /Verapamil causing gum tenderness so I can explain to my dentist that my gums may be tender because of the medication since he doesn't have an explaination for the problem. It's just one of those things I'm not complianing about anything ,but this site seems to act as thought one wants to sue or something ! I've been taking this medication for years and have no complaints I just want to know from another source if it's possibly the cause. As the info I get from the pharmacy states it can cause this problem. Can someone varify this??? LLE