Physicians desk reference symptoms and conditions

I have been reading all of your Simvastatin experiences with high interest and would like to share my adventures with all of you as well. My story began seven years ago when I was relatively healthy and enjoying life. My doctor prescribed Lipitor for my elevated cholesterol and two months later I found myself in the emergency room after having a severe bout with vertigo for the first time in my life. I have since spent the last seven years fighting this debilitating illness which continues to haunt me after having seen every top neurologist in my area and having taken every neurological test available. It would be as difficult to convince me that I was not somehow "poisoned" by Lipitor as it was for me to convince my doctor.

I was eventually prescribed Simvastatin 40MG and seemed to stabilize for a few years even though my dizziness problems persisted. Suddenly I began experiencing bouts of upset stomach and severe lower abdominal pain. I allowed my doctor to order basically every nasty test known to man in an effort to discover the cause of this new problem, but all have come up negative so far. Eventually I began to experience total exhaustion in the middle of my work day, not to mention the back, neck, and muscle pain that has been described so vividly in this forum. Basically, I have become a 53 year old man who feels much older, has absolutely no energy, and rarely has a day when I can honestly say I feel alive and well.

I am not a doctor and I can't honestly prove that Simvastatin is the cause of all of my problems. However, I do have common sense and after reading all of your thoughtful comments on the subject I would be foolish to at least not suspect that the drug may possibly be making me less healthy and not more healthy. Thank you all for opening my mind to this possibility and I certainly plan on discussing this with my doctor very soon, who may no longer by my doctor should he continue to insist that I take this nasty drug.

Been on Zocor for two years went from 20mg to 40mg and since being on the 40mg I have increased leg & foot cramps so severe @ night that I have trouble getting out of bed, the foot locks up. Even getting up after sitting is a problem, sometimes my feet and legs go numb and I even fell a few times. I get very tired during mid day. The newest problem is my sight, I have notice that there is a blurriness that I don't know if it ever clear up, after telling my doctor this she said it was the arthritis and to take arthritis nonasprin and to stop the zocor for about a week, I am going to stop period.

Hello-
I am here to share my story about topamax in hopes that others may read this and not have to go through what I did. I went on topamax for the prevention of migraine headaches. It worked great to prevent my headaches but gradually I could not talk, I stuttered severely, and I have memory and other cognition problems. At my doctors recommendation I stayed on the medicine for about 6 months because he assured me that the stuttering would go away. I was in such awful pain that I agreed with him. Needless to say that 6 months was not me. I couldn't talk and I couldn't think. Now when I think back on it, I wish I had just endured the pain. When I went off of the medication I still stuttered. It was not quite as severe but it was bad. It effected my work, my personal life, and daily menial tasks. I could no longer communicate. I was devastated. My doctor was puzzled and said that he had never heard of this before. So to make a long story short I went to a speech clinic, bought casa futura techs small talk device, and tried some anti-stutter meds. My speech now, 2 years later, is much improved thanks to the smalltalk but guess what,? I still stutter. Manageable and not very noticeable to others at times but my speech has not returned to pre-topamax status. I looked into sueing the drug company to bring awareness about this issue but did not get much positive feedback from attorneys. IF YOU ARE ON TOPAMAX AND ARE STUTTERING, STOP TAKING IT. IT MAY NOT GO AWAY WHEN YOU DISCONTINUE THE MEDICINE. It is not worth it. You cannot put a price on speech. I don't care what the physicians desk reference says, what your doctor says, what the corrupt drug companies say. I know my experience and it has been a catastropohic effect from topamax. Find a different med if you have speech problems! Please, for your own sake. Thanks for letting me share my story.

I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2001 and have been taking 10mg simvastatin ever since. Over the last six months have had severe increasing pain in right shoulder neck and arm. Out of the blue the doctor has since automatically changed dose from 10mg to 40mg. I have not taken the 40 yet as I am too scared and am using up the 10mg. Sometimes have diarrhea and nausea. I had to wait 2 weeks for xray and another 2 weeks for the result. Am to see the doctor in 2 days because I cannot stand the pain any longer. A month ago he told me to come off the simvastin as I would not have to wait long, but after 2 weeks thought I had better go back on it again. Have now stopped again because the pains are worse. wondering about taking herbal medicine instead.

PLEASE HELP! My father, age 74, was on lipitor for a year or so and then was switched to zocor a few weeks ago to help control his cholestorol. In the past week, the tightening he experienced in his leg, while on lipitor, has become debilitating leg pain now while he is on Zocor. Ultrasounds have ruled out a blood clot. He has no pain when he sits, but he describes the pain has his calf wanting to explode when he stands and he cannot walk with out the help of a cain. The pain radiates from his leg up to his hip.

His cardiologist has taken him off the zocor for a few weeks to see if there is an improvement. It has been 3 days and he feels a bit of relief. SO here is the million dollar question: His labs indicate his cholestorol is normal now, most likely thanks to the statins.....can anyone suggest another form of meds that will help regulate his cholestorol....say COeq10 and fish oil? Any help is SO appreciated!!! Thanks to each of you for your posts. It is so comforting for my dad to know he isn't developing a new issue and that it can be resolved with the removal of zocor!

My doctor put me on prednisone for pain and inflammation and I have never felt better in my life. It's a miracle for me right now and I'll take my chances with the side effects for being pain free. I'm a happy lady for now.

I am 40-years-old and took Singulair for about two months. I first took it for about two weeks and got horrible symptoms and then stopped for a week and then tried it again for about a month. Never again will I put Singulair into my body. My symptoms were chronic and severe muscle cramps and twitching, restless legs, body aches, numbness, tingling, hair loss, weight gain, and skin changes (urticaria and angioedema). I also used to suffer from menorrhagia to where now I barely get a cycle. I cannot blame Singulair for the headaches/migraines because I have been a headache/migraine suffering for many years.

When I first stopped taking Singulair the symptoms calm down. But since then they have come back with a vengence. I have been to several specialty doctors (family doctor first, endocrinologist, neurologist, allergist and rheumatologist). Now please let me defend myself by saying I see my family doctor and gynecologist yearly for a physical and also when I am sick and I have always been basically a very healthy, and slender woman with thick hair. I was on no other medications other than ibuprofen and acetaminophen for the headaches/migraines. What they have found so far is that I have secondary autoimmune hypothyroidism (only my TPO antibody and thryoglobulin are extremely elevated, but my TSH, T3 and T4 are completely normal), and allergies to everything outside (no food or pet allergies) and idiopathic lupus (because my skin has developed urticaria and angioedema).

I am going for an EMG and MRI of the brain in one week because they are trying to rule out MS. They have been saying that my symptoms look like MS or lupus. They have ruled out lupus because my blood tests do not show lupus only my skin is acting like lupus. My allergist put me on doxepin for my skin and twitching symptoms. This medication has helped my skin and slowed down the twitching.

I am not trying to blame Singulair, but it is very strange that I was a basically healthy person with some outdoor allergies and mild asthma. I would get pneumonia once a year also (always around the holidays). Now, I feel like crap since taking Singulair. My legs are the worst of all the symptoms along with the constant twitch under my right eye. This can drive a person insane, especially when you are trying to relax and your body cannot.

Thanks for listening,
Carrie

Hello, I started taking Singulair last summer and after three months of thinking I must be dying I decided to look for a website that wasn't connected to formal medicine and I found this website and one other and was so relieved to read the postings I found. I am a retired R.N. and while working I saw more than my fair share of negligence and outright malpractice. I watched as the "helping professions" of medicine become yet another lucrative venue for the big businessmen. Drug companies are the worst. Do not expect or trust the drug companies to perform long-term testing of new drugs before releasing them to be prescribed. It doesn't happen the way it had before when there were strident ethical standards in force. It truly is about money. Something that really frightens me more and more is how the doctors and nurses believe what the drug companies have documented about their drugs as gospel. If a possible side effect isn't listed in the pharmacology manual they truly think it can't exist. These are intelligent people for the most part, but thinking can become institutionalized and narrowed along with their medical vision. Then here we have patients coming to the doctor or nurse practitioner complaining of a host of symptoms caused by a drug like Singulair and since these side effects are not listed in the Physicians Desk Reference the patient might be sent for a myriad of anxiety provoking tests, the patient might be improperly diagosed and improperly treated possibly with more medications that will do more to harm the patient. And here is this poor patient ,dispirited, because she is probably still experiencing these side effects and the real cause is being bypassed altogether due to a misplaced trust in a drug company. Who needs this and who needs an added problem, the wasteful and expensive expense! I stopped taking Singulair due to the people who were willing to share while looking for answers themselves. Your sharing has helped so many. I thank you. Singulair has helped with congestion that I would otherwise have gone to my PMD for an antibiotic. It clears the congestion along with a regimen of nasal douching with colloidal silver and oil of oregano just fine. I have asthma but it is rare for me to have an attack. My sinusitis is the reason Singulair was prescribed for me. I was alternately relieved and angry last year when I realized the things I was experiencing were from the Singulair. I was about to throw my presription bottle out when I decided to keep it just for the times of extreme sinus congestion. Three weeks ago my father died and I cried a lot and that gave way to congestion and so I took Singulair for two weeks and it happened all over again. I'm fifty five and forgetful, anyway, and now I had the added thick brain fog making me feel like I had dementia, so, I was forgetting where the arthritic stiffness and pain was coming from, the weakness in my legs and feet, the fatigue, the anxiousness, anxiety, the gastrointestinal pains and rumblings (I thought I had an ulcer), palpitations, chest pains, fears of choking when eating, (I had largyngitis for six weeks last year while on this horrible drug), depression, dizzyness (I was at a shopping mall to buy Father's Day gifts and was sure I was going to pass out or have a heart attack) , headaches and weird pressures felt in my head and numbness and tingling in hands, arms and feet and legs. I stopped taking it yesterday and I can say I feel about 50% improved. I know when the diet is examined and changed to a vegetarian diet excluding dairy products including eggs and drinking pure water and no carbonated beverages or alcohol that asthma and sinusitis can be greatly reduced and many times eliminated. I would welcome the dosage and schedule of the quercitin/bromelain regimen and any other alternative approaches...please email me at ****** If your doctor gives you the fisheye when you tell him that Singulair is killing you, and if he patronizes you thinking you do not know what YOU are talking about...remind him of this...remind him/her of all the doctors who believed hormonal replacement therapy (HRT) to be the answer to preventing heart disease and breast cancer in women...and how it was found that HRT actually was causing both Heart Disease and Breast Cancer!! Then you can appeal to him to use his gift of discernment giving up his blind faith in drug companies and their hype. Thank you

Oh my God, it's the drug from Hell. I started taking prednisone yesterday for the very firt time to treat severe inflamation of the bronchial airways due to pnemonia. I now now what an asthma attack must feel like. It was like breathing through a cocktail straw; frightening and unpleasant in the extreme. The good news is, within a couple of hours of taking prednisone, I was breathing easily without difficulty and severe wheezing; nice deeep full healthy breaths. The bad news is, I have been experiencing almost intolerable pressure in my skull along with headache, restlessness and insomnia. The worst part is, my heart started beating at an extremely abnormal accelerated rate, as if had injested a large amount of amphetamine such as cocaine or liquid adrenaline. Absolutely horrendous! My heart has been beating so rapidly that I suffered a pretty severe anxiety attack and felt as though my heart might pop right out through my chest cavity. I looked this drug up in the Physicians Desk Reference and the side effects are not ones I care to experience; insomnia, restlessness, anxiety and possible psychotic delusions. Good Lord, this stuff is poison as far as I'm concerned. I'm only supposed to take it for one week, but I'm going to contact my physician and see if its ok to discontinue. My reaction to this drug has been a nightmare. Although I'm breathing easyily and normally, the side effects do not, for me, outweigh the benefits.