Last several years symptoms and conditions

I've been on and off singulair for several years. I had a horrible bout of bronchitis that then triggered bronchial reactive disease and I now have allergic reactions to certain chemicals (some spray deodorants, etc.) Singulair worked so much better for me than advair, I was thrilled to be able to talk and breathe. As a teacher I would sometimes have to stop the lecture to get my breath again and drink some water if I inhaled the slightest amount of chalk dust or something.

After reading the comments on this website I am going to discontinue taking singulair. I used to be this skinny person and never, ever worried about my weight. At the age of 37 I had a rip-snortin' major depressive episode with insomnia that had me miss 3 days of sleep (this is on no medication of any kind) and panic attacks and suicidal thoughts and impulses that I'd never had before. Imipramine was my first prescribed med (in 1991) and worked like magic. It cheered me up, calmed me down and made me sleep. I went from 135 pounds to 155 pounds in just several months. I finally got switched to effexor and trazodone, but there's really not been much weight loss. I'd hover around 150-160, but then with singulair added in the last several years I am 170 lbs. I can't believe I am a fat person now and do not over eat. I can't go off my psychiatric medication because it runs in our family and if I taper off I am...uh...crazy. My insomnia is tenacious when I am without medication and then that makes depression and anxiety worse. I never want to have a panic attack again.

I just ran out of my singulair prescription about a week or two ago. I am breathing and speaking fairly normally and my husband and I now have to pay for our own health insurance which is exorbitant and I just didn't feel like renewing the prescription in order to save money. I was pondering my weight gain today and just decided to google singulair and weight gain and I just can't believe it.

I have also experienced hair loss, but my hair is so thick it still looks basically the same. My husband and I have noticed over the last several years that I lose lots of hair after I wash it and there is a mass of hair in the shower stall.

My memory may have been adversely affected by taking singulair. I thought it's just getting older. I am 55. It's been the last several years that I have started to have problems remembering things. I have always had to work with my husband in helping him remember things (it's been life long with him: he is an absent minded professor. He has a genius IQ, is an M.I.T. grad, is an excellent engineer and can't remember his mother's birthday, what plans we have for the week-end, no matter how major, etc. to save his life.) I feel like I am becoming more like my husband in being hopeless and helpless about remembering what's happening from one day to the next. It could very possibly be the singulair. There has been a marked difference in my memory over the last several years. It is embarrassing. I sub for the school district and once showed up on the wrong day at a school and another time didn't show up and they had to call me up and get me out of bed to go to work. I also teach piano and never used to forget who was coming when. Again, I don't know if I can blame this on singulair causing memory loss, but there would be times when someone would knock on the door and I'd be surprised to find a piano student standing there. I feel like I am getting Alzheimer's. My grandmother had it for 17 years. My mom has always been afraid of getting it but she is 80 and is just now starting to show signs of real forgetfulness. I explained to her what my lapses in memory are like and she is shocked to hear that they are similar to hers. My mind just will completely go blank. I will have this thought, get distracted, and just a moment later will struggle to remember the previous thought and there is just a void, peace, blankness, white screen in my mind. Maybe it is getting older, but maybe it's the singulair. Since I'm just recently off it I'm going to pay attention and see if my memory improves or if it is just old age.

Also, my joint problems have been nearly ruining my life the last several years. I don't know if this is exacerbated by my singulair use or not. Bursitis in the hips runs in my family like crazy. We re-sided and painted our house several years ago and my bursitis started to flare up and has been bad since then, but it's also about the time I started taking singulair. I had to quit a sales job this summer because my bursitis has become so bad. Sometimes I can hardly walk. It is nearly unbearable. I get cortisone injections every 6 months, but need it every 2 months. I wonder if my discontinuation of singulair will ease my joint pain? I'm going to track that as well.

For me: weight gain, hair loss, joint pain, some dizziness are possible side effects from singulair.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this site. I am never taking singulair again.

I was prescribed doxycycline hyclate by mt dentist for gum disease. I have been taking it since 3/23/2009. I stopped taking it two days ago. I have found increasing joint pain, especially in the thumbs. It has been getting worse. Also muscle aches from routine yard work, nothing strenuous. Itching all over the hands, arms, legs and back. I had been advised by the pharmacy to watch out for sun while taking it. Since it is summer time, there isn't too much one can do to completely stay out of the sun.

I intend to continue to suspend taking the medication and purge it from my body. This is the second time in the last several years that I was not properly advised of the various side effects.

I was prescribed this medication for dental disease and to take it for a minimum of 90 days. Since 3/23/2009 the gums have stopped bleeding. I just hope my system can purge itself of this RX.

I posted earlier, and I just felt it was necessary to add a few additional comments. My daughter is 9.5, and after I got home from work tonight and spoke with her pediatrician, I felt it was important to have a long overdue heart to hear with my daughter. First off, I told her that I no longer wanted her to take the Singulair, and that her Dr. supported that. I told her what she needed to in place of the Singulair. Then came the hard part... My daughter has made comments to me over the last several years, as often as 2-5 times per week about suicdal thoughts. I am not sure when it even started, maybe when she was 5?... about wanting to die, or wanting me to just kill her, her killing herself. This has troubled me for years, and again, thought this was my parenting, and found it too embarrassing to discuss. I briefly mentioned this once to the pediatrician and once to my son's therapist, and didn't seem to get any reaction from either. In hindsight, I wish I would have taken these more seriously, but given her age, I thought she was just having an angry temper tantrum, which there were many.

At any rate, tonight, I talked about these comments with her, and asked her to tell me more about why she said them, and did she mean them, or was she just angry with me? Her answers were very disturbing. It took a great deal for her to be willing to answer me, she was afraid I would be upset with her, and when I reassured her that if she didn't talk to me, I couldn't help her, she finally talked to me. She told me that frequently she did feel like she wanted to die. Sometimes it was a feeling of wanting to make me suffer. Sometimes it was a feeling of just wanting to end her life. Many times she would have these thoughts and they were just kept to herself. She would often think about how she would end her life while laying in her bed, after she had taken her Singulair at night, and not falling asleep. Or, it would wake her from her sleep. She stated that these thoughts would occur 4-5 times per week. Many times she had nightmares that involved me, and did not feel that she could tell me. What frightens me most, is how many times my daughter would awaken in the night and sleep walk. She has not harmed herslef before, but had I not learned about this, and stopped the Singulair, who knows??

So, this all came out tonight, as I held her, we cried together, and I assured her that these thoughts were not her normal brain thoughts. I told her I would help her, as long as she communicated with me.

I just heard about this from my mom this morning. I've been on Singulair for 4 years for allergies. I'm 23 years old. Over the last several years I have had many nights that I went without sleep. I have gotten severely depressed and on the rare occasion that I drink more than a couple drinks, I have had insane mood swings. I have had horrible anxiety and I have gone from an honors to student to being on academic probation.

It has really helped with my allergies, but I had gone through hell the last few years and I've been borderline suicidal for a period.

My daughter is 20 years old and a chronic asthmatic with severe allergies. She has been on Singulair for 8 years. She has been complaining and in some instances begging her asthma doctor for a reason for her insomnia and restless sleep over the last several years. She takes other asthma and allergy medications. He told her to not take her Xopenex inhaler before bed, as that may be causing the problem, that didn't help at all (sometimes a Xopenex nebulizer treatment is needed for her at bedtime and during the night, during asthma flair-ups). Her doctor just switched her from Allegra (which she has been on since she was 10) to Zyrtec, which is helping with allergies, but not with the sleeplessness. She was taken off of Advair and put on Symbicort in September 2007, this made her asthma worse requiring Prednisone off -and -on since January. She is back on Advair and doing better, but the sleepless nights continue...

We are seriously contemplating taking her off of the Singulair. We aren't 100% certain this medication is causing her insomnia/sleeplessness. However, as she explains it..."If I could get one really good nights sleep, I would go off of the Singulair in a heartbeat". Our fear is that by going off of the Singulair that her asthma will worsen.