Pediatricians symptoms and conditions

My 4 year old daughter was taking Singulair before bedtime (for asthma) and developed vicious bad dreams. I took her off the Singulair and the bad dreams disappeared. Through web forums I learned that this side effect has occurred in many children. For the past 2 months her asthma has been completely controlled through the use of a nebulizer and inhaler. I found out the Pediatricians and Nurses and our care facility were not even aware of this side effect. Why is such a mind-altering drug being prescribed to children? And why does a medicine that produces bad dreams require it to be taken before bedtime? She was also taking Zyrtec to control allergies. Her doctor mentioned that it could be taken any time of day, so we gave her the Zyrtec in the am and the Singulair in the pm. One morning during allergy season we forgot to give her the Zyrtec in the morning, so we gave it to her at night. Five hours later she was crying hysterically! It took hours to get her to calm down, and this girl is a very happy, social, well-behaved and well-adjusted child. I stopped both medicines the next day and within one week the bad dreams disappeared. So I would also cautious parents about Zyrtec as well.

To All...

I am an anchor and the Medical Specialist for the CBS station in Louisville, KY. I have read these compelling and shocking accounts of the side affects with Singular. I have also been in contact with some pediatricians here in our area. I am doing a special report on this subject, the many accounts of side effects, and whats being done about it. I need your help. Are there any families who would be willing to tell their stories on camera? This is not to embarrass anyone, but to inform and raise important question for the public at large and the medical community. I am looking for families in the Greater Louisville,southern Indiana, central Indiana or even central Kentucky area. If you're nearby those areas, we are willing to travel to get your story. If you are interested, please contact me. My original post was deleted because I had my personal information on it. However, I will send more information in my reply to my own post. So again, if you are interested in telling your story, please look for that reply. I look forward to hearing from you.

I am totally upset by reading the posts here. my son is just now 8 months old. he was put on singulair when he was just 6 months old. at first it seemed to be working...for maybe 2 weeks...then everything went crazy. he was started out on it when his pediatrician stated that he had asthma and apparently was on a very high dosage of it. they started him on 10 mg of the oral granules. before taking it he was a very happy baby, even with him being so young i never had any problems with him crying excessively or being massively irritated. since he started on the medication he has had massive irritability spells, constant fussing and crying and cant seem to fall asleep at night let alone stay asleep very long. i had taken him to the emergency room on christmas eve because a new problem showed up. he now was having a massive hard time breathing, he had a persistant cough, congestion in his chest and was almost always gasping for air. the staff at the hospital were in disbelief when they were informed that his pediatrician had put him on singulair at such a young age and at such a high dosage. i am now in the process of obtaining a lawyer and filing a lawsuit against the pediatrician for medical malpractice. this drug is very dangerous for anyone especially children. i would suggest anyone else having these problems with their child and this drug do the same. it can apparently cause long term lung damage, pulmonary disorders and even death. my son has been off of the medication since christmas eve and has already done a massive turn around. he sleeps well and through the night again, his breathing has improved and his cough is almost gone. they did say in the E.R that he has congestion in his chest due to the singulair but it should clear up over time with the help of zyrtec. please help make a stand and protect our children from the dangers our own pediatricians present to them.

Bobby you are so right "BIG Pharama" and thank you for your well researched comments that you post.
BUT let's not forget big pharma whom I do hate over this issue does state a lot of the adverse side effects on the labels.
SO MR and MRS DOCTOR why don't you read the instructions and advise us of what to watch out for. I told my doctor over a 3 year period of leg cramps that made me squeal and physically dropped me, I also told him over 3 years that my swimming speed overnight dropped by 25% which I now know is a dangerous condition called loss of muscle power. In the end I went to him knowing I was dying, I could only shuffle not walk straight and my whole body was hunched like an ape, people in the street were looking at me. My speech was slurry. This clown who was previously highly respected and revered by myself and wife asked me if I had a low pain threshold, he stood up behind his desk imitated my ape like shuffle then told me to stand up and walk straight. So in my mind there are 2 very clear issues.
1) The big pharma criminal scam.
2) The doctors failing to be safe, read instructions and think for themselves.

I'm in New Zealand a couple of months ago a 69 yr old fellow in Australia with an axe chopped up his wife and grandchildren killing them. A neighbor said they were an ordinary family and the man had become deeply withdrawn.
I stopped a car in the middle of the street and attacked it with my walking stick, I heard "voices" and stalked my house at night with an axe in my hand.

Go to space doctor DOT net and type in Allen Woodley suicide. There are 3 examples here where people lost their minds and took their own lives through statins.

We the "small" people have to originally put the pressure and file the complaints against the doctors then they can resist the pharmas.

No I am getting my faculties back make no mistake I will be filing a police complaint of criminal negligence.

Get the instructions and front the doctor after all he/she is the "retailer" and they can take it up with their "wholesaler"

These b#$%^&&ds are not only wrecking us but they are demonstrably negligently and criminally wrecking the lives of society's grandparents whose golden years we must protect.

Incidentally when I asked my doctor in January for an apology he rammed his bunched fist in my face in his surgery and said how dare you doubt my ability as a doctor. Not bad some of these clowns.

Then of course as we who have been forced to research ourselves we all now know that cholesterol and elevated cholesterol as we get older is absolutely essential for longevity.

These practitioners are totally unbelievable.

I first read notes on this site in February 08 when our Doctor prescribed Singulair. My 7 year old daughter is a silent asthmatic which prompted me to push past the side effect warnings written here and give it a go. Rach had strong side effects for the first two weeks & then seemed to settle, so I persevered with it. The drug didn't seem to have no effect on her asthma flare ups but the doctors didn't believe me and encouraged me to keep going. After 6mths I called it quits and took her off it. She's now back to her normal self. No longer emotional, her school work picked up immensely, no more nightmares or unexplained body aches. She does still have tummy aches but they are subsiding. She's been off singulair for 3 months now. Every doctor and pharmacy I spoke to denied the side effects and promoted the product. To anyone researching this drug, do your little one a favour and don't use Singulair unless it is a last resort. There are so many other alternatives out there.

I have a 26-month old grandson who has been on Singulair for "27 DAYS". His pediatrician knows that his immune system is already compromised due to some developmental delays. However, before he started taking his Singulair he was a very happy, funny and loving child. Within 2 weeks on this medicine we started to notice a few changes in him. He started waking up at night "screaming" and he has been sleeping through the night for at least a year now. And when his mother would go in to get him out of his crib, he would be so frightened and afraid to leave her side. It would take her a very long time to settle him down and put him back down for the night. At the same time, he started not wanting to drink his normal daily glasses of milk or eat his regular meals. He was simply a mess most of the day and would fuss, cry, bang his head and we were having a very hard time trying to figure out what was wrong with him. He is not yet talking due to his delayed speech, so he could not tell us what was going on. Yesterday, I told my daughter let's look at the side effects of Singulair since it was the only thing that had changed within the last few months. When I found this site, I could not believe what the parents/grandparents were saying about their children on this drug. We immediately took him off Singulair. This will be his second day without being on the drug. According to my pharmacist, it will take approximately 50 hours for it to get out of his little system. The pharmacist had not heard the latest that aired on the TV station, so she asked me to call her back in a few days to tell her how my grandson is doing. Parents should be able to trust the medications that are prescribed by their Pediatricians, especially at such young ages. My daughter is REALLY UPSET and has a call into my grandson's doctor. Thank God I found this website. I simply searched on "side effects of Singulair in children" and this site came up. I do believe the Lord is watching over my grandson. Thanks.

Here is one for you Artie. Maybe you can go find the statistical profile of studies regarding montelukast and CYP2C8. Originally it was hypothetized that montelukast would inhibit CYP2C8 thus inhibiting steroid (as an example) metabolize. In vitro studies predicted that. Then studies in vivo didn't confirm. Here is another one done in 2006.

Conclusions: Telithromycin increases the plasma concentrations and blood glucose–lowering effect of repaglinide by inhibiting its CYP3A4-catalyzed biotransformation and may increase the risk of hypoglycemia. Unexpectedly, montelukast has no significant effect on repaglinide pharmacokinetics, suggesting that it does not significantly inhibit CYP2C8 in vivo. The low free fraction of montelukast in plasma may explain the lack of effect on CYP2C8 in vivo, despite the low in vitro inhibition constant, highlighting the importance of incorporating plasma protein binding to interaction predictions.

http://www.nature.com/clpt/journal/v79/n3/abs/clpt2006320a.html

The question would be is that always the case or are there genetic variations among people that influence the outcome? Or is there potentially something else that we should be recognizing and we aren't doing that.

I thought of that again when I read this post. We obviously have many questions that should be answered especially when something that we don't expect happens.

Posted by Mindy Miller
Monday, April 14, 2008 4:39 AM EST

I am a pharmacy student and a mother of two sons that take Singular daily. My six year old has been taking it for 4 years, and my three year old for two years. They both have well controlled asthma. I wanted to reply to the questions many have posted about how long it takes to "get out of your system". The half life of Singular is 3-6 hours, so it is gone in a maximum of 18 hours. I came to this website while searching for information about recent FDA warnings. As far as I can tell, there are very few cases documented of mood changes and suicidal thoughts. There are many reasons why children have mood changes, and not feeling well because they have asthma and allergies could also be the source. I wonder if many who start Singular are also taking Prednisone, a steroid, to treat an asthma flare up. Steroids are definitely known to cause mood changes and is one of the reasons they can't be used long term. Please talk to your doctor or pharmacist before taking your children off of medication that may be helping them feel better in the long run.

http://www.injuryboard.com/national-news/fda-issues-early-warning-on-singulair-and-suicides.aspx?googleid=30278

If we had all of the answers, then there would not be such a wide range of symptoms that manifest themselves as a result of Singulair. So I am not trying to spread any conclusions that may be misleading. These are questions and not answers.

After reading more posts and comments to others re: SINGULAIR and discussion of side effects of steroids - I am really scared as you could all imagine! Do I need to look for any side effects from the flovent and albuterol? What should Iook for? I am so not the paranoid type but am quickly becoming more now b/c I don't want my son to suffer anymore. I know predisone long term but what about the flovent which is a steroid? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

This post is in regard to a form of albuterol known as "Xopenex" or levalalbuterol. From what I've read, many pediatricians are using this instead of Albuterol for infants and young children. It's the drug of choice because it supposedly has no side effects. This may be the case for most children BUT not my three year old daughter. Her pediatrician prescribed nebulizer treatments of xopenex and pulmicort, twice a day for six weeks. We managed to stick with it for four-five days- It was a nightmare! My daughter wouldn't eat (and this is a child who isn't a picky eater at all) or drink much at all and went for 12 hours one day without urinating. She was so horribly moody that you couldn't stand to be around her. She cried and screamed about everything and she is normally a very cooperative and happy-go-lucky kid. She also became aggressive towards me and others which was also very unlike her. The worst part was at night. She would have horrible screaming fits when it was time to go to bed. When she finally fell asleep, she would jerk and twitch most of the night. Several times she woke up after sleeping for about three hours, screaming at the top of her lungs. I would try to console her and she would yell louder and pull away from me. If I tried to touch her, she would swing at me as hard as she could. She seemed terrified of me and my husband. It would take me forever to get her calmed down enough to go back to sleep. If someone had videotaped these episodes, blocking out her face, NO ONE could ever have convinced me that this was my little girl. Her personality was so changed that I wanted to cry. I knew what it was doing to me to watch her and I couldn't imagine what was going on in her little head. I called my pediatrician and she brushed off my concerns. She said "Three year olds have temper tantrums." I told her that I understand that but not usually at three thirty in the morning. I took my daughter to MY doctor and he said he thought it could most certainly be the drugs. He suggested that we use the pulmicort alone one night and the xopenex alone the next night. We were surprised to see that she had reactions to both the drugs. One night she tossed, turned and twitched and the next she woke up in a terror. We stopped both medicines and ALL the symptoms ended. She will NEVER use these medicines again unless there are no other options! And we will not be back to our pediatrician!

My daughter, now 7 years old, took Singulair (4mg crystals) every evening from 12/29/2004-4/3/2008 (with 5 days off in 2/2008 ONLY). She developed significant mood disturbance/mood swings, sleep disturbance/frightening dreams and anxiety/unexplainable fears during this time, which we have now attributed to the drug, Singulair - the ONLY MEDICATION SHE WAS TAKING besides occasional antihistamines (which caused no problem). The drug Singulair clearly caused significant psychiatric symptoms in my daughter which are strikingly similar to symptoms now being attributed to the drug by MANY parents across the country. I suspected Singulair of negatively affecting my daughter and talked to her allergist about taking her off it in 2/2008 (before any news broke about links between Singulair and suicidal thoughts/behavior). The effects of Singulair on the brains of children are NOT UNDERSTOOD and/or NOT reported. I believe that this is a dangerous drug. It has been very difficult to connect the use of this asthma/allergy drug to behavior/mood issues in young children for two reasons. First, improperly trained physicians confuse drug "side effects" with normal child development (a "phase") or psychiatric illness. Second, Singulair has been heavily marketed as "SAFE" (to the medical community and directly to patients and their parents) and therefore has not been suspected when these serious psychiatric disturbances are reported to doctors. Pediatricians and allergists have said for years, "It couldn't be the Singulair" because that is the impression SOLD to them by Merck.

In response to Concernedcitizen with regard to the additional medications prescribed, we never got that far, but we were close. My son, as I've mentioned on here before (sorry for the repetition, but I think it's important), was about to be diagnosed as bipolar, which would no doubt have led to a whole host of other drugs.

Also, I totally agree with concernedcitizen with regard to not necessarily blaming our doctors. We should expect them to listen to us and take our concerns seriously, though. My son's first pediatricians were dismissive and condescending. We switched doctors and when I handed the new doctors a printout of all the posts from this site (back in 2005), they looked skeptical, but guess what? They READ it. And, my son's primary pediatrician has since told me that he's taken several kids off Singulair based on our story and the posts he read. The research provided her by concernedcitizen is INVALUABLE. If enough doctors see this stuff they'll start to question it and at least look at some of these children differently. Rather than throwing a prescription for Ritalin at them or stuffing them full of wellbutrin/abilify/lithium/klonopin/cymbalta/ they might think, "Hey, this kid's on Singulair...maybe we should try taking him/her off for a while to see what happens."

Finally, I wanted to put it out there that while kids may show mild side effects in the beginning (so mild that they can be dismissed in one way or another) I, personally, believe that with this drug side effects intensify over a period of time. My son, for example, was highly functional on singulair in the beginning and it completely eradicated his asthma and allergy symptoms, so it was great. Over time the side effects were more numerous and increasingly intense. Finally it got to the point where we couldn't dismiss it as bad behavior anymore, it was just completely outrageous behavior and my instinct told me it HAD to be the singulair. So these case studies that look at kids over a 24 week period are useless. In 24 weeks my son was fine. 52 weeks? Totally different child.

Definitely use the info provided on here, it will help not only your child, but other children as well.

I just contacted CNN to give them a tip/heads up to our message board so that they can consider doing a news story about this situation to raise awareness. Please send them your concerns and personal story to:
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form11b.html?2
If enough of us email them, they will start to listen.

Lourdes
Mother of Julian
(severely affected by Singulair use)
Suffered severe head drops seizures, obsessive compulsive and agressive behavior and night terror and hallucinations.

Repeating Our Story:

Repeating my post from way down below - IN CASE someone's child with these head drops is looking for someone with similar symptoms. WELL - Thank God! It is so about time! My son, age 6 now was given a very grim outcome/future by two top pediatric neurologists 2 years ago when he started having not the typical seizures we associate with epilepsy (no epilepsy in our family) - his head would drop forward - like his muscle tone in his neck would collapse for a few seconds and he would literally bang his head on tables (this was when he was 3.5 yrs old) - my husband and I always knew in our heart of hearts it WAS THE SINGULAIR he had been taking for 1 year after he had a bad coughing spell the year before - not formally diagnosed with asthma - but the pediatricians insisted it would only benefit him to continue to take it. When we noticed these head drops and his eyes would at times roll back in a matter of just a second or two and he was the most loving, caring and affectionate child and turned into an aggressive and obsessive compulsive child, who also began to have HALLUCINATIONS at night - he would sit up in bed and be seeing things and scream and cry, WE JUST KNEW IT WAS THE SINGULAIR and we stopped it COLD TURKEY on Oct. 31st 2005 - against the advice of the pediatrician. We took him to a neurologist and we told him about our suspicions about the Singulair he, just like the pediatrician brushed it off, but he had an MRI and an EEG - the MRI came back normal, but the EEG was devastating!!! We were told to get ready and pray alot - that our little boy would become a vegetable and would require assisted living for the rest of his life. That he had a rare form of seizure disorder for which there was no cure. We took him then to Duke University Hospital and had him checked by the top pediatric neurologist for a second opinion - he gave him another EEG and the diagnosis from this dr. was even worst - he would probably die an early age due to the severity of his condition and that he would lose all his motor skills and regress to a vegetable. Those were the worst days of our lives. We went back home and put him on anti-seizure medication and prayed ALOT - even strangers added him to their prayer list. Well, the seizures stopped in late January 2006 and just last March of 2007 he had another EEG and it was NORMAL - he was weaned off the anti-seizure medication and is thriving and his a great kindergarten student. Doctors cannot explain how he was cured - there is just no explanation. Aside from the faith we have in God's hand in this cure, we just KNOW THAT STOPPING THE SINGULAIR saved him from further damage and probably loss of life. He is the most affectionate and caring little boy you can imagine and I do want to point out that his speech was affected in our hearts, we know it was the Singulair but in the last year his speech has improved dramatically and he is doing just fine. My husband and I have been struggling to get awareness about the dangers of Singulair and children but the doctors do not believe us. At our last appointment with the pediatric neurologist, I told him, "one day, you will see that we were right about our suspicion regarding Singulair". I do want to add that it was just too much coincidence that when he went for his first EEG in Dec. of 2005, there was another little boy in the room next door that his parents suspected Singulair as the culprit too. If anyone wants to email me and if there is anything I can do to help with my own personal testimony - please email me starwedd2@aol.com - I will be glad to share any other information. LET'S RAISE AWARENESS TOGETHER and stop more damage from occuring. Remember, my son (post is far down) almost became a vegetable and was given a grim prognosis by 2 pediatric neurologists including the top one at Duke. No cure we were told. But we always knew it was Singulair. He was cured and there is no medical explanation. Had he continued to take it he would be the vegetable they had predicted he'd become. Okay, I just emailed DATELINE NBC - please be sure to submit your children's adverse reactions story to them - here is the email address: Dateline@NBCUNI.com I also tried emailing ABC for PrimeTime and 20/20 but they use regular snail mail for story suggestions - please do your part and mail out your story to them at: To submit a story idea to one of the ABC News shows listed below, write a single page letter including your name, phone number, and address. Include photocopies of backup information. On the outside of the envelope, write "Story Idea." If a producer is interested in your story, he/she will contact you. Here are the show addresses: 20/20 147 Columbus Avenue New York, NY 10023 Primetime 147 Columbus Avenue New York, NY 10023 Together we will do something to help avoid more tragedies I went ahead and reported our experience online to the FDA: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch/medwatch_online.cfm

My son is 8 and has been on Singulair for 4+ years. When he was as young as 5 he said he should just throw himself off of our staircase and in first grade, age 7, he told a friend he wanted to kill himself with a knife or scissors. I have taken him to psychiatrists, psychologists, pediatricians and guidance counselors and none have linked it to Singulair. I spoke with our allergist and he said to take him off of it. He said their office was not notified when Merck changed the side effects last year. Obviously the fat cats at Merck are enjoying their big bucks with little regard for the people taking their drugs, look at the new evidence about Vytorin-it does not work yet they have made millions on it. They knew it did not work 2 years ago. I am so happy that I now know this drug is dangerous. We will stick with our Nasacort, Clarinex and allergy shots, which are helping tremendously. I am planning on getting off of Singulair for my asthma as well. It is not worth it. There are too many reliable drugs out there to waste my money on the suicide drug! I am on Asmanex and may add or change to symbicort. I am so sorry some have already committed suicide because of this drug.

my son is 9 and has been on SINGULAIR since he was about 5 for bad asthma and allergies. he has had trouble in school since he started, we thought it was ADD. he started having constant stomach aches and headaches. we started seeing a counselor because he would say things like "I hate my life" and "I don't want to live anymore" thats when he was 6. he had many other issues like hallucinations, night terrors, bed wetting, anger problems, depression, trouble focusing at school, mood swings, emotional ups and downs, just to name a few. we have been to pediatricians and psychiatrists and no one mentioned ever that it could possibly be the singular. we have added other medications like most parents, for ADD which made him worse. about 1 year ago he was diagnosed with bi-polar and was prescribed Abilify, an anti-psychotic. he has since gotten somewhat better but I never connected the Singulair side effects to his symptoms. (note: bi-polar symptoms in children are strikingly similar to bad side effects of Singulair) maybe he doesn't even have bi-polar! maybe he was more subject to having these side effects because of underlying problems. I have stopped giving him the the Singulair a few days ago but i don't see a significant change, yet. Its a very sad thing that parents like myself have so much trust in our doctors that we give our children these medications before we know anything about them. I myself will never make that mistake again and my prayers go out to all those who have made the same mistakes.

Repeating my post from way down below - IN CASE someone's child with these head drops is looking for someone with similar symptoms.

WELL - Thank God! It is so about time! My son, age 6 now was given a very grim outcome/future by two top pediatric neurologists 2 years ago when he started having not the typical seizures we associate with epilepsy (no epilepsy in our family) - his head would drop forward - like his muscle tone in his neck would collapse for a few seconds and he would literally bang his head on tables (this was when he was 3.5 yrs old) - my husband and I always knew in our heart of hearts it WAS THE SINGULAIR he had been taking for 1 year after he had a bad coughing spell the year before - not formally diagnosed with asthma - but the pediatricians insisted it would only benefit him to continue to take it. When we noticed these head drops and his eyes would at times roll back in a matter of just a second or two and he was the most loving, caring and affectionate child and turned into an aggressive and obsessive compulsive child, who also began to have HALLUCINATIONS at night - he would sit up in bed and be seeing things and scream and cry, WE JUST KNEW IT WAS THE SINGULAIR and we stopped it COLD TURKEY on Oct. 31st 2005 - against the advice of the pediatrician. We took him to a neurologist and we told him about our suspicions about the Singulair he, just like the pediatrician brushed it off, but he had an MRI and an EEG - the MRI came back normal, but the EEG was devastating!!! We were told to get ready and pray a lot - that our little boy would become a vegetable and would require assisted living for the rest of his life. That he had a rare form of seizure disorder for which there was no cure.
We took him then to Duke University Hospital and had him checked by the top pediatric neurologist for a second opinion - he gave him another EEG and the diagnosis from this dr. was even worst - he would probably die an early age due to the severity of his condition and that he would lose all his motor skills and regress to a vegetable. Those were the worst days of our lives. We went back home and put him on anti-seizure medication and prayed A LOT - even strangers added him to their prayer list. Well, the seizures stopped in late January 2006 and just last March of 2007 he had another EEG and it was NORMAL - he was weaned off the anti-seizure medication and is thriving and his a great kindergarten student.
Doctors cannot explain how he was cured - there is just no explanation.
Aside from the faith we have in God's hand in this cure, we just KNOW THAT STOPPING THE SINGULAIR saved him from further damage and probably loss of life.

He is the most affectionate and caring little boy you can imagine and I do want to point out that his speech was affected in our hearts, we know it was the Singulair but in the last year his speech has improved dramatically and he is doing just fine.

My husband and I have been struggling to get awareness about the dangers of Singulair and children but the doctors do not believe us. At our last appointment with the pediatric neurologist, I told him, "one day, you will see that we were right about our suspicion regarding Singulair".

I do want to add that it was just too much coincidence that when he went for his first EEG in Dec. of 2005, there was another little boy in the room next door that his parents suspected Singulair as the culprit too.

If anyone wants to email me and if there is anything I can do to help with my own personal testimony - please email me ****** - I will be glad to share any other information.

LET'S RAISE AWARENESS TOGETHER and stop more damage from occurring. Remember, my son (post is far down) almost became a vegetable and was given a grim prognosis by 2 pediatric neurologists including the top one at Duke. No cure we were told. But we always knew it was Singulair. He was cured and there is no medical explanation. Had he continued to take it he would be the vegetable they had predicted he'd become.

Okay, I just emailed DATELINE NBC - please be sure to submit your children's adverse reactions story to them - here is the email address:
*******

I also tried emailing ABC for PrimeTime and 20/20 but they use regular snail mail for story suggestions - please do your part and mail out your story to them at:

To submit a story idea to one of the ABC News shows listed below, write a single page letter including your name, phone number, and address. Include photocopies of backup information. On the outside of the envelope, write "Story Idea." If a producer is interested in your story, he/she will contact you. Here are the show addresses:

20/20
147 Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023

Primetime
147 Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023

Together we will do something to help avoid more tragedies

I went ahead and reported our experience online to the FDA:
https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch/medwatch_online.cfm

FILE YOUR REPORT - TOO.

Posting my experience again.

You are not alone and your children are NOT hypochondriacs (something tells me small children don't even know what that means).

My 5 year old son was diagnosed with mild asthma and put on Singulair. Within a few months he began having uncontrollable fits of rage, displayed self-loathing behavior, had night terrors, and was inconsolable during these episodes. He became very destructive and was a danger to himself and our family. He even talked about killing himself and would say things like "I don't want to be in this life anymore" and "I want to kill myself". He would threaten my wife and his siblings and told them he wanted to kill them. It was a truly terrifying experience. Our pediatrician was clueless to these side affects and recommended we have our child go through a psychological evaluation. I knew this was not my child's normal behavior so I searched the internet for Singulair side effects and found some message boards where parents just like me were telling their stories of their children's aggressive behavior. I immediately took my son off the drug and within a couple weeks he was back to his normal self. He told us that he no longer has "that feeling inside of him". Five year old children don't even know what suicide is and to see my son talk like this was extremely frightening. He is a sweet, intelligent, loving boy who had never exhibited behavior like this until he went on Singulair. We have not seen this behavior after taking him off the drug. Please use your best judgment and connect the dots for yourselves.

I like to live my life with facts, not speculation and drama. My child is on Singulair and doing fantastic. I remember the trips to the ER when I did not know if my child would live or die. Of course when I saw this report, it caused me some concern so I did some research on my own. Did you know that suicide is the leading cause of violent death in New York State, the United States and the world? In 2002 in New York State there were 1,292 suicides which exceeded homicides by 32%. The statistics show that 1 in 10 teenagers plans to commit suicide. The National Center for Health reports a 10% suicide rate in kids 15-24 years of age and 4 male suicides for every female suicide. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among those 15-24 years old.

So now we have 1 child in New York that has committed suicide that just happened to be on Singulair, and it is Singulairs fault? Show me the proof. All I see is one distraught mom who is trying to find blame for her son’s tragic death. Is there only half the story being told, a trend I have noticed in journalism these days. Let’s face it, life happens. I am NOT on Singulair and I have had melt downs, thrown things across the room, been depressed over things, cried, and even for the past week have been having some crazy dreams. I remember as a child putting notes on my room door telling my parents how much I hated them. I remember as a teenager thinking my life would be better if I were dead. I remember my child being cranky and fussy before she was on Singulair, gee maybe she was teething. The term “terrible twos” has been around a lot longer that Singulair. Let’s face it, we have turned into a society of people who always want something to blame. I think it is time people start taking responsibility for themselves and accept the fact that sometimes life just happens. Take accountability for your own lives, and stop trying to blame everything and anything.

I also live my life by reading internet blogs with a grain of salt. These blogs are public forums and places where anyone and everyone can post. How do you know that all these posts are real? Remember the day when kids made prank phone calls for fun? Now they have the internet and can post pranks on these blogs. How do you know that a competitor to Singulair is not posting in order to fuel the feeding frenzy? How about a registered sex offender or a felon in prison? There are a lot of “sick” people in the world and yes, they have access to the internet too. If you are hanging on every single one of these posts as being true and real then I feel sorry for you. The internet provides anonymity and it is easy to create a fictitious identity and a fictitious story. That is probably why if you do a search for “internet safety” you get 15,700,000 hits.

Until I see proof, I am not going to take my child off Singulair. The CDC reports that in 2002 there were 1.9 million visits to the ER for asthma and 4,261 asthma deaths. If I did stop my child’s Singulair, and she died in the ER from as asthma attack, whose head does that fall on? The media?

5 year olds do not talk about suicide...period!!!

My child was on no other medications. I have reported this to Merck and the FDA and have also changed pediatricians after a lengthy discussion with her. I cannot speak for others.

The issues with Singulair are far from over. Stay tuned.

WELL - Thank God! It is so about time! My son, age 6 now was given a very grim outcome/future by two top pediatric neurologists 2 years ago when he started having not the typical seizures we associate with epilepsy (no epilepsy in our family) - his head would drop forward - like his muscle tone in his neck would collapse for a few seconds and he would literally bang his head on tables (this was when he was 3.5 yrs old) - my husband and I always knew in our heart of hearts it WAS THE SINGULAIR he had been taking for 1 year after he had a bad coughing spell the year before - not formally diagnosed with asthma - but the pediatricians insisted it would only benefit him to continue to take it. When we noticed these head drops and his eyes would at times roll back in a matter of just a second or two and he was the most loving, caring and affectionate child and turned into an aggressive and obsessive compulsive child, who also began to have HALLUCINATIONS at night - he would sit up in bed and be seeing things and scream and cry, WE JUST KNEW IT WAS THE SINGULAIR and we stopped it COLD TURKEY on Oct. 31st 2005 - against the advice of the pediatrician. We took him to a neurologist and we told him about our suspicions about the Singulair he, just like the pediatrician brushed it off, but he had an MRI and an EEG - the MRI came back normal, but the EEG was devastating!!! We were told to get ready and pray a lot - that our little boy would become a vegetable and would require assisted living for the rest of his life. That he had a rare form of seizure disorder for which there was no cure.
We took him then to Duke University Hospital and had him checked by the top pediatric neurologist for a second opinion - he gave him another EEG and the diagnosis from this dr. was even worst - he would probably die an early age due to the severity of his condition and that he would lose all his motor skills and regress to a vegetable. Those were the worst days of our lives. We went back home and put him on anti-seizure medication and prayed A LOT - even strangers added him to their prayer list. Well, the seizures stopped in late January 2006 and just last March of 2007 he had another EEG and it was NORMAL - he was weaned off the anti-seizure medication and is thriving and his a great kindergarten student.
Doctors cannot explain how he was cured - there is just no explanation.
Aside from the faith we have in God's hand in this cure, we just KNOW THAT STOPPING THE SINGULAIR saved him from further damage and probably loss of life.

He is the most affectionate and caring little boy you can imagine and I do want to point out that his speech was affected in our hearts, we know it was the Singulair but in the last year his speech has improved dramatically and he is doing just fine.

My husband and I have been struggling to get awareness about the dangers of Singulair and children but the doctors do not believe us. At our last appointment with the pediatric neurologist, I told him, "one day, you will see that we were right about our suspicion regarding Singulair".

I do want to add that it was just too much coincidence that when he went for his first EEG in Dec. of 2005, there was another little boy in the room next door that his parents suspected Singulair as the culprit too.

If anyone wants to email me and if there is anything I can do to help with my own personal testimony - please email me ****** - I will be glad to share any other information.

Daughter was sick for 6 weeks with what started as a virus . Dr.'s said virus needed to run it's course and allergies were also bad so they put her on Singulair. When she wasn't improving they said she had mono. No improvement, still mono. Still not improving, more specific test, not mono. Dr's chalked it up as she had a virus and was now just depressed from being down for so long. Well when you have mono u r told not do anything and only rest. After weeks of doing this she was depressed and weak. Then we were told that the diagnosis was wrong and we were had been trying to nurse the wrong sickness. Dr's said to send her back to school. By that time our daughter was so far gone it wasn't possible. Every time we left the house she would scream and panic. Experiencing exhaustion and not her self (She loves school & was always a very happy child) I knew there had to be something wrong with her. They sent her to the hospital lab twice and found nothing. Still trying to say she is only depressed but now being rude about by saying that we were just giving her, her way. My husband & I decided that the Dr.'s were not doing there part and trying to get to the bottom of her illness. So we began looking at what had been different in her life over this period of time (5 weeks).The only thing that had changed in her life other than her catching a virus was that she was put on Singulair. We had enough common sense to know that some people may have a reaction to some medicines that others won't. And just because not every Dr. has experienced this doesn't mean it can't happen.We read the pamphlet and all of the side effects. Even the rare ones she was experiencing. Shaking that looked like seizures, body aches, numbness in fingers and toes, extreme fatigue, loss of appetite, weight loss, irrational behavior, anxiety, paranoia, coughing, depressed, swelling of the lips, hallucinations, blurred vision,screaming every time she left the house, and complaining of constant pain. We felt like that had to be what it was. So we researched it and found on medications.com story after story of children who had gone through the same thing that she was experiencing. Dr was very rude and said she had never heard of that before and just send her back to school. So my husband ad I made the decision to take her off the med. The day before we rushed her to the hospital was her last day on the Singulair. That turning point was the seizure like shaking,hallucinations, saying that she couldn't hardly see us.That night in the ER they ran a CT Scan and found nothing. They admitted her in the pediatrics unit and we began a week that felt much like a month. They started her on an IV. They called in different Dr's...resident Dr's, pediatricians, etc. Everyone said our theory on the Singulair was possible but since they had never personally experienced a case of that they just weren't sure.When no one could figure out what was wrong they then called in a neurologist. He was very concerned and immediately started assessing her and ordering blood work and tests. She had an MRI and an EEG. All came back normal. He listened to our theory and said it was possible but to be sure he wanted to test for for everything else to make sure nothing was being missed. She had lost 5 lbs before her hospital stay and not sure how much more after that but while in the hospital when I bathed her, it was so sad to see her stomach all shrunken in. They put her on 5 different medicines while in the hospital that we were so upset and torn because then we felt like she was being drugged. They had her on an IV the whole week she was there and hooked up to monitors.She had a couple of really bad episodes while she was there where she felt like she couldn't breath, couldn't stop shaking and then she lost her speech which scared us to death. They ended up sedating her to calm her down. That one episode was on a Wednesday and then Thursday they gave her another medicine and it looked like she was having a bad reaction to it....her eyes were open but she couldn't move her body. We were freaking out thinking something was wrong. I ended up crashing and had to be carried away. All the result of everything going on of course.Everyone on the staff was very frustrated at not being able to help her. We felt like we were loosing our baby.We continued slowly getting through the end of the week and weekend dealing with all the symptoms still. Dr came to the conclusion that he felt she had got a bad virus. Although, he never dismissed the fact that it could be the Singulair but said unfortunately there was no test to look for that. He said parents usually know their kids better than anyone though.Dr. said when she was released she would have to go to inpatient rehab because of the anxiety issues and because she had not walked for so long (4-5 weeks).Dr came in Monday morning and said if she did not start drinking more she was about 2 days away from a feeding tube. During the day she started drinking more and when he came back in that night he said she had drank enough and he took her off the IV and said she could go home and we could do outpatient rehab. We were so happy to take her home even though we knew it would be hard. So the next day, Tuesday, was very hard and we had very serious episodes with not talking, loss of hearing, shaking, still not walking and passing out. We called the Dr. at the hospital and they said it was all due to the anxiety. We were praying over her so hard. Well Wednesday she woke up and said she had no more pain, she was hungry, and she started walking again. We got our baby back! And there is no doubt in our mind that it was that Singulair. We know that it was. From the time we took her off of Singular to the time she was totally restored was 9 days. It happened just like the all the other parents had described. As soon as it was out of her system she all of a sudden came back to us. We decided to not take her back to those pediatricians. I recently took her for a follow up with her Allergist,who was not aware of what had happened and after hearing the story said that he had experienced two of his patients being allergic to Singulair and they had hallucinations. They were pulled off the medicine immediately so their cases were not as extreme as hers. Please be cautious! This was a devastating experience! Please feel free to email us. I have documented our whole story if you would like it emailed to you.

I came across this website last night and was very shocked, but also relieved as to what I read. My 8 year old son has been on Singulair for about 3-4 months now. He had some minor behavioral problems before, but since being on the drug, it has become in my opinion, out of control. He has been having increasing problems in school-not listening, not following directions or staying on task, even yelling at the teacher. At home he has been really aggressive and punches the walls when he gets angry. Every little thing sets him off.

I had a wierd feeling last night that maybe it was because of the Singulair and ran a google search and found this blog. I was amazed to see how many other children were experiencing the same thing. I was relieved though too to find out that I wasn't going crazy or in this alone.

I spoke to my son's doctor's office (allergist) and he CONFIRMED that there have been a small number of incidents of this same thing having been reported and that Singulair contains ASPARTAME. My son is now going off the meds for one month to see if there is an improvement in his behavior.

I immediately called my pediatricians office and let him know-the nurse said that they were not aware of the side effects or that the drug contained aspartame.

I am going to reiterate everything that other people have already said-call your doctor and let them know and report the side effects to the FDA. We have to do it! Understand everyone has different reactions to medications, but we don't want more children to have to go through these feelings or more parents to feel frustrated.

The instructions that come with this medication clearly indicate that this medication , and is typed in caps USE OF THIS MEDICINE IS NOT RECOMMENDED IN CHILDREN under the age of 15. Please talk to the doctor about the risks and benefits before giving this to your child.

Now that is with the print out you get when you pick up this medicine from Kaiser, and other drug stores, so I am really shocked to read all these stories of people giving this drug to so many small children. Always research your medication BEFORE you give it to yourself or your child.
I have had many bad reactions, and had to learn the hard way for myself and mor my aging mom, she almost was rendered brain dead from a drug I did not research. Do your homework FIRST! I will never make this mistake again. Hope this helps someone.

Hey,
My name is Krysten im 14 and im in the 8th grade. I'v been taking adderal for almost 4 months now. Before taking adderal I wasent doing good in school, I would always get into fights. My life was miserable. So I asked my doctor if I could try adderal agian. Before when I took adderall my stomach hurt and I wasent feeling the same. Then I wanted to give it a try. A week after I started to feel my self agian, my family and my teachers noticed a huge diffrence in my academics and my ADD. I went from getting E's and D's to getting on the honor role last quarter. I got the most improved in my grade and I was very happy. Now its the final quarter and now im feeling that adderal isant helping as much as it use to I'm worring about if I'm going to do as well as last quorter and im feeling a little anxiety. I went from taking 30 - 40mg in less than a month, Since I take 10mg after school. I also have been exeirencing weird things. When I get up from sitting down, I sometimes get a huge headach, I cant breath for about 30 seconds, I sometimes see stars and Its like a black out also, I get up then I cant see anything its all black, then slowy I can see agian. I would really like to know if i should raise my Mg higher for me to focus more and be happyer over time. I think adderal was a life changer for me. Please answer my question as soon as poosible!