Perspective symptoms and conditions

hi all. thanks for writing your comments here. it has helped me today, another HORRIBLE day of prednisone hell. i have been seriously ill for 8 months been told ever other week I'm likely going to die from lung disease (i'm 35) and after a painful lung biopsy have been told my lung problems are almost all reversible... after a year on high dose prednisone. i was on 40mg a day for a month a while back and was so out of control from rage and crying and insomnia and panic/suicidality, ravenous appetite, that they lowered me to 30. then after biopsy they said i should be on 100mg to cure me, we settled at 60mg. it's been 24 days. The moon face started about one week in. i've gained 8 lbs. i am an emotional wreck. i have at least one rage filled attack per day where i am screaming and want to kill somebody or destroy something. some days i am so filled with hopelessness and worry i just want to die. my body changes (after just losing 30 lbs and being a work out fanatic my shortness of breath makes it impossible to walk up 2 flights of stairs without resting) face changes, acne, excess body hair (oh my god please make it stop i'm like a chia pet and i'm so afraid it is going to get worse) double chin, puffy eyes and cheeks, absolutely uncontrollable emotions and mood swings, inability to be logical or reasonable. i don't want to leave the house, i'm panicked and scared all the time. i never sleep. ambian gives me minimal relief (just started taking it) i feel like i'm losing everything, except my lung functioning is returning and i'm not going to die from this illness (they assure me THIS week) i understand light at the end of the tunnel, but living like this is unbearable most days, almost impossible the rest of the time. am i alone with the severity of this? or are all the others like me too busy hiding the sharps and crying in a corner to write on this board? thanks for listening :)

figures, forgot to mention what HELPS. no eating after 8 (7pm is better) no salt, no sugar, exercise, even just a walk every day, anything physical, i walk like a grandma on the treadmill but i still do it, sometimes it is the only thing that stops my crying. no alcohol, support and understanding from loved ones, it's not you, its the drugs. good luck.
figures, forgot to mention what HELPS. no eating after 8 (7pm is better) no salt, no sugar, exercise, even just a walk every day, anything physical, i walk like a grandma on the treadmill but i still do it, sometimes it is the only thing that stops my crying. no alcohol, support and understanding from loved ones, it's not you, its the drugs. good luck.

My name is Bobby and I've been dating a girl who has been through some tough times. She took my advice and started taking an antidepressant, Celexa, 5 weeks ago. 3 Weeks after starting the Celexa, we began to have the relationship I always knew we could. I love her so much and for one week I was the Happiest man in the world.
Unfortunately, against my advice she started taking Yaz a week after beginning the Celexa. I told her that beginning two new drugs at once will eliminate the ability to identify which drug is causing which affects whether they be positive or negative.
After 3 weeks of Celexa and 2 weeks of Yaz, my girlfriend started acting alive and excited about life again!! She even started losing weight because of her beautiful new-found energy and zest for everything. She was playful, she was laughing, she was sexual, she was the girl of my dreams and we fell more in love than ever.
One week later (After 4 weeks of Celexa, and after 3 weeks of Yaz) a monster emerged who no longer can stand the sight of me. She doesn't want me to touch her, hug her, or even kiss her. She doesn't sleep at night. She screams and yells at me for being annoying when I'm doing things that once made her smile with love in her eyes.
I found an apartment today and decided to move out... I have never been treated so poorly by anyone in my life before. She's aggressive and verbally abusive. She's been complaining that people are talking about her and she seems paranoid. I made the mistakes of taking steroids a while back and I can tell you she is the monster now that I was then and both Yaz and steroids affect hormone levels and I'm telling you I just can't believe how many relationships this drug must be ruining.
Tonight I took the Yaz and threw all of it out. She got mad at me because she's afraid that she'll stop losing weight... I mean she's just completely lost perspective. I showed her pictures of us happy together and she still chose losing 3 more pounds over our relationship. I'm losing my mind... Just a few weeks ago she reminded me again that she wants to marry me and give me babies. Where has my future wife and future mother of my children gone??

I'M LIVING IN FEAR THAT SHE WILL FIND A WAY TO GET MORE YAZ B4 SHE'S BEEN OFF LONG ENOUGH TO SEE WHAT IT'S TURNED HER INTO.

SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP!!!
******

Well here is the male point of view. My spouse had her Mirena inserted Monday 4/14 like the FDA website says she had cramping and spotting. Literally the next day 4/15 the first mood swing hit. It did not matter what I did it aggravated her or annoyed her. Before the Mirena we were having sex 2-3 times a week. Zero sex this week. This morning 4/17 she reported her first bloating. She said she thought she had gas. What baffles me is most of the symptoms reported on this site are listed by the FDA as side effects common to more than 5% of test subjects. So why are your doctors telling you ladies this is all in your head? My spouse’s doctor said that Mirena was known for low weight gain, yet from the post that is like the number 1 common side effect. Am I every going to have sex again? Last night I did everything I could to seduce my spouse, flowers, wine, caressing, you know all those things men are not good at, and nothing....I got snubbed :-(
I'm going to give it some time but god I hope her case will be different. I'd rather wear condoms than deal with the moodiness. God forbid she gains weight (she just lost 15 lbs and that weighed heavy on her decision) that will throw her into a real mood.

I have been Singulair-free for 11 days now. I do not entertain any more suicidal thoughts, I feel MUCH happier just generally. I have cried, but haven't felt really low, just sad, normal-sad. I do have more difficulty breathing and tightness in my chest, but I am looking into adopting an anti-inflammatory diet. I have exercised more since stopping the Singulair, so I hope that will help long term with my lung function. I would definitely say I would rather feel some tightness in my chest or breathlessness going up stairs than intense sadness and irrational suicidal ideations. This life is much better than the one I had two weeks ago, and I know it's the same life, nothing has changed, just my perspective. I wonder if taking drugs off the market is going to be like putting up stop signs or traffic lights - we have to wait for a significant number of accidents before that move would be warranted. I really can't believe that all those years I thought it was me. I am a whole new person psychologically and it is because of an asthma medicine that is approved for KIDS! Amazing.

Wow, everyone, thanks for the support. Medicdad asked that I keep him posted about how I'm feeling, and this is only day two, and I hope this isn't a placebo effect, but I do feel better already. I did cry a bit yesterday, but I didn't get carried away with my thoughts or anything, and not once did I have any inclinations to harm myself. No thoughts like that came into my mind all day, and for what seems like forever they came in several times a day, even when I was "happy". Seriously, I would be doing laundry, nothing upsetting happened, and I would think about hanging myself in the garage. And who do you confide in with something like that? That is CRAZY. I feel like I have more rational thoughts and a better perspective on pretty much everything that presents itself to me, but I don't want to get my hopes up just yet. As far as the asthma, I feel like I can breathe the same, even better, which seems odd, since yesterday. I do take advair, and I am hoping that will be enough. I also take zyrtec for my allergies, so hopefully those two will suffice in maintaining my quality of life in those areas. I am already planning to exercise this afternoon after work, which I think is a good sign, and could help my lung function naturally. So I hope that I can report that things are much improved after a week, like so many other people have posted.

Just wanted to update everyone reading in. I have been off Singulair for 6 days now and have felt more relaxed and better than I have in a long time. Also, I would like to know how long it has taken for others to not have ANY symptoms after stopping the medication? Just had a bad nightmare. Something I have been having since being on Singulair. Hope this is out of my system soon. Dizziness is still hanging around some too. To the parents with children, please give your child a lot of hugs and let them know how much you love them. I know you allready do, but give them a few more.

Here is some perspective for you all. I take Singulair and do well on it and in ACTUAL studies it has one of the safest safety records. Understand that post marketing reporting does not mean there is a correlation between the event and the product. Throughout the life of a drug the companies must disclose any report of side effects reported to them REGARDLESS of causality. A popular antihistamine that is OVER THE COUNTER also has suicidal thinking/behavior listed in its post marketing section. However, just because patients who had reported having these thoughts while taking the product doesn't mean it was a result of the product! Maybe they had a depressive personality and were also on multiple other medicines to treat that. You must look at the "Adverse Reactions, Warnings and Precautions" sections of package inserts to see the side effects that were actually seen in studies. You can die from ulcers derived from over use of aspirin or ibuprofen. Decongestants can throw off your blood pressure and these events are documented in actual studies! Listen to your bodies when taking any med. If you feel differently report it to your doctor.

These are all drugs people, there are potential side effects. There are also side effects to those "natural" over the counter remedies that are not nearly as regulated by the FDA or studies by the drug companies.

To anyone out there who has experienced side effects to singulair timed to when you started it, talk to your doctor, stop taking it and see if it goes away. Same advice for any product prescription or over the counter medicine. Side effects can be a combination of many factors (what other meds are you taking?) But understand for many people this product is the safest and most effective treatment for them. The FDA and Merck are reviewing all information to see if there is any correlation to the reporting. But singulair been around for about 10 years and prescibed to billions of people and is known to be one of the safer medicines out there overall.

In between the legitimate posts on this site I get the sense there is a lot of ambulance chasing going on. People looking to cash in on this big drug companies. We want drugs, we want them cheap and with no side effects which is not a reality. Keep stepping up the regulation and make the companies hire more lawers to protect themselves and jump through even more hoops and see what happens to the price and access to new meds. Even better, see how regulation has impacted the development of new medicines around the world (here's a tip, it will dramatically decrease). Drug companies certainly aren't perfect but which industry is?

Please, when taking any medicine over the counter, prescription or herbal supplement listen to your bodies to see if the potential benefits of the product outway the risks or side effects. Report any changes to your doctor.

Perhaps the only good side effect I have experienced as a result of my Levaquin poisoning is a never ending quest for understanding. I really want to understand how this happened to me and so many others. My life has been dramatically altered and it does not appear that it will return to the way it was any time soon (if at all). So I want the who/what/when/why of how it happened. My searching led me here: ******
I believe many of you might be interested to see what some others have to say on the matter but please be forewarned... it might bother those of you who have been harmed by these drugs. Also, if you look closely I think you will see some similarities in the postings that mirror some recent postings here about the benefits (?) of this stuff. It certainly is an interesting perspective.

I just wanted to give an alternative perspective to the comments on this board.

I've been on Yaz for two months, and I'm very happy with it. The first week or so wasn't great: weird muscle aches, fatigue, lightheadedness occasionally. I had light brownish discharge/spotting for about a week. The second week I had some striking headaches, and over the first two weeks I lost 10 pounds (water weight).

But since then it's been smooth sailing. My period came exactly on time and lasted about 2.5 days. I no longer have any symptoms besides breast tenderness (akin to what my breasts felt like before my period, before).

So - keep in mind when you're reading these negative comments that usually the happy folks don't feel the need to post!

Struggling with a sinus infection that threatened to bore into my brain, resulting, ultimately, in seizures and death, I've been taking Levaquin now for three days. I'm experiencing anxiety and sleeplessness, however, it's not from the medication. It's from all the hyperbole on the internet.

Look, I understand that many have had adverse reactions to this medication. One dose of penicillin can kill you without warning. At anytime. No warning. I suspect that few of those labellings Levaquin "poison" would ever bother to consider that - or anything else. All wrapped up in your misery, you spout off with rhetoric that is really better left to lawyers and politicians.

If you were uninformed of the possible side-effects of this medication, blame your doctor. I see that the last post here is dated November 2007, and the bottom of this first page takes us to October 2006. Perhaps one could take a bit of responsibility for oneself and do some research on one's own before popping a pill handed out by a disinterested physician. This information is out there - and yes, your doctor could have seen it, too. But he didn't bother, did he? Neither did you.

So, yes, with my first dose, and despite the impact drill driving through my eye-socket, I waited for the seizures, swelling and signs of imminent demise. Nothing. Sorry. Oh, my sinuses feel better, I don't have a brain infection, and so I won't die frothing at the mouth on my living room floor.

I'm sorry you feel bad - and if you hadn't run off at the mouth calling what may be one of the last effective antibiotics "poison", I might mean that with some sincerity. Oh, and lest you forget, antibiotics are poison by definition - the idea being that they affect/poison/kill the source more than they do the host.

So let's stop the hyperbole, and simply say you had a bad reaction to this medication. Not everyone does. Your option might have been to skip the doctor and the meds altogether, and see how you'd fare. But that would leave the responsibility, and the blame, all on you, then, wouldn't it? Far better to spread it around some.

I think it's important to keep perspective. There are people reading this forum who have just started Levaquin or it has just been prescribed to them. Keep in mind that everyone posting here did so because they had problems with Levaquin.

There are far more people who have taken it with little or no side effects, and chances are, you will be one of those people. I just completed a 10 day course of 250mg for acute kidney infection, and experienced no side effects at all.

I have no doubt that this drug does have extremely horrible side effects for some, but listen to the diagnosis for many of these people. Sinusitis? It's the most common diagnosis in doctors' offices each day. And many foolish doctors are prescribing something this strong for sinusitis. Thousands of people start this medication each day, and most will not have problems. If everyone had problems, you'd see thousands of posts each day, a class-action lawsuit would have been organized, and the drug would be off the market.

Eventually this WILL happen, but because the side effects happen to so few people, it will take years to amass enough participants to make it worth the expense an attorney will have to front to take on the company.

This is what really scares me. Reading page after page of awful side effects can actually cause someone to manifest these side effects phychosomatically in their body. So if you're reading this after just having started Levaquin, DON'T LET YOUR IMAGINATION GET OUT OF CONTROL. It's not likely that you'll experience what these people have.

If you do, be responsible, report it to your doctor and to MedWatch.

My daughter is 8 years old and has been on Advair since she was 4 years old. In those 4 years she gone from a normal, healthy weight child to significantly overweight. When I discussed this with her Pulmonologist he said that there wasn't enough steroid in the Adviar to cause this. And to put this in perspective she has put on 30 lbs in just one year. After reading some of the entries I was relieved to find out that she is not alone. As of today I have taken her off the Advair. Thankfully she has the type of asthma that can be handled in another way. I just wish I had found this website earlier.

Wow...well, I just got a prescription for this stuff today, and after reading all of your comments, I'm not too enthusiastic about starting it! I am taking it for chronic canker sores...I get them every month, about 10 days prior to my period, then they clear up once my period starts. This has been happening every month for the past 13 months. They are incredibly painful and I usually can't talk or eat solid food for several days, which my husband doesn't generally mind, but which is a real pain when you have to talk for a living! :) I'm also concerned as I've seen several people mention sore gums and cracked lips as side effects...this is kinda why I'm taking it in the first place. I'm only supposed to take 5mg for 5 days once I feel the sores starting to develop. I must admit that I'm getting pretty desperate, but I'm also extremely sensitive to meds and tend to get a majority of the side effects of most medications. The weight gain is not particularly appealing, though I don't know if that will be a big risk for such a low dose and limited dosing schedule.

My heart goes out to all of you with all of these terrible medical problems...here I was feeling sorry for myself and after reading so many of your stories, I realize how fortunate I really am that this is the only reason I'll be taking this drug. Despite all of the troubles that you've had with this drug, most of you have overcome SO much. Thanks for putting things back into perspective for me! You all hang in there, and again, any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!!

Just to give some perspective - I'm 35 and have been on Lupron for a month now, for fibroids. I, too, was petrified after reading about all of the side effects. I know that some women have horrible problems from lupron, and I really feel for all of you who suffer from it. But it's important to remember that usually, the only people who will post in forums like this are those that have horrible problems - the ones who do fine on the drug rarely, if ever, post anything. So it's easy to get a skewed picture.

After one month, the only side effect I've seen is a few mild hot flashes, mostly at night. A couple of times in the night, I'll have to pull the blankets off, then I go back to sleep. No big deal in my case. Otherwise, nothing - no weight gain, no excessive tiredness, no unusual moodiness, nothing. I'm hoping the next 2 months will be the same - and I think they will be.

I don't want to downplay the negative effects some people have had - I know they're real. But not everyone suffers from them, and I wanted to post for people who are considering starting Lupron, so that they can see it's not all bad.