Psychologist symptoms and conditions

I want to apologize publicly to my wife for suggesting (just last night) that we go see a psychologist. We had had a couple of beers and a nice dinner with the kids and by the time she got upstairs she was transformed. I couldn't help thinking that there was something seriously wrong. I'm glad that she found this site and directed me to it because just about every symptom described here she has had. Many of which we couldn't even get to the doctor before they had "disappeared" only to be replaced by different one the next day. Unfortunately it has cost her her business which she is closing at the end of the month; fortunately we've found this site. She's already scheduled to have that piece of sh*t removed on Friday.

My eight year old son was diagnosed with mild asthma by our GP and was taking Ventolin for a persistent cough. When this didn't relieve the cough the doctor prescribed Singulair. He started the Singulair in March 2009 and within 2 months we realized that his personality had dramatically changed. It has taken us a while to figure out what was going on because eight year old boys are starting to assert themselves more and I think the side effects have been escalating over the last month. He was angry most of the time, very hateful towards his siblings, saying very dark, nasty, hurtful things. He argued every time we asked him to do something and would snap into a screaming inconsolable emotional wreck at the drop of a hat many times a day over trivial or imagined problems. He was having nightmares and bursts of hyperactivity that were overwhelming. He told us he felt frustrated all the time and hated everything. When we tried to calm him he was unreachable. Just yesterday he had his fist clenched and pulled back ready to punch me when I was trying to help him with a computer problem. He was shaking and his face was contorted with rage and he just wasn't my little boy anymore.
It has been devastating for our family and we were ready to take him to a psychologist. He is normally an incredibly considerate, perceptive, loving child, highly intelligent, helpful and fun loving with a great sense of humor.
He has also complained of leg pains and has been wetting the bed again. It was only yesterday that I began reading about other people's side effects and have taken him off Singulair as of last night. Whilst he has still been argumentative today already the aggressive intensity seems to be easing.
I am absolutely mortified that I allowed this to happen to my son and my family and I am so grateful to others for sharing their experiences.
We still need to address his asthma and will make an appointment with a specialist next week, but given his asthma is so mild he should not have ever had to suffer these side effects.
I only hope now that he has not sustained any long term effects and that his younger brother has not been scarred by the truly horrible things that my son has said to him.

I have been taking welbutrin for about 4 years now. I am going to tell my exact dose and type since I am trying to figure out from other peoples comments if there is a difference in side effect in SR vs XL . I have taken 150 XL and the went down to 75 mg Sr because i was trying to decrease the dosage and come off entirely eventually. I have suffered with acne all the four years but thought it was stress (Daughter became type i diabetic and can't ever get her blood sugar stable and the my son developed a bone tumor not long after she was diagnosed). Anyway we finally got his problem resolved with good results but hers is a blood sugar nightmare everyday. So you can see why I thought the acne was from stress . Never even crossed my mind it could be wellbutrin. I noticed my skin was better for a while when my dose was just 75 mg sr. But alas the bone tumor came back again for my son and had to go back to 150xl. Skin has hundreds of little white tiny tiny white heads. Is this the type of acne other people are experiencing?

My son used a nebulizer 2 to 4 times a day every day from the time he was one and a half years old. When he had just turned three his doctor prescribed Singulair. It was like a wonder drug for us! It took care of his asthma and we didn't have to use the nebulizer any more. He's been on it ever since -- he's 10 now -- he also takes zyrtec and has a rescue inhaler that he uses maybe once a week. About every other year he requires a course of steroids and a week of regular nebulizer use. Also, for the past year he has also required a daily inhaled steroid.
Now, about his mood issues. My son has always been sensitive and intense, moody. The first time I became alarmed was when he was 7, and he told me he wanted to burn his hands on the stove to punish himself for forgetting his homework. I consulted a psychologist who evaluated him and said he was not clinically depressed. Since then he has had periodic "dark" episodes -- especially in the winter. He has said he wants to die. He has had crying jags over things that are upsetting (loss of a pet was the worst) but it seems excessive for him to be saying he "just wants it all to end." He has told me that he is always unhappy and that he hates himself. He has also had problems with moody acting-out with friends. He will brood about hurt feelings until he loses his temper and screams at the friend. I have worked very hard with him on learning to manage his emotions. He hit a friend at school who was teasing him. He accepted his consequences willingly and willingly wrote letters of apology -- he told me he thinks he has anger problems and doesn't want to be this way. And his character is that he is a sweet, caring boy who can't stand to see anyone hurt, but also can't stand to be hurt.
A couple of years ago I asked his allergist if any of the meds he's on are linked with depression. He said no. We have a family history of depression, and I thought my son had gotten the worst combo of all the genes.
Recently, this all got to the point that I decided he needed to see a psychiatrist and quite possibly take medication for depression. Before I made the appointment he had a check-up with his allergist. Going down his list of meds the dr. said, recently Singulair has been linked with depression, have you noticed any moodiness or sadness? My first thought was that I have, but that he's always been like this. My 2nd thought was that he has been on Singulair for most of his life. I said yes and that I'd like to try him off of it.
My son resisted going off of it. He has had enough negative experiences with asthma that he didn't want to risk it, but I insisted. I didn't expect to see any change, but I thought it was important, as I was going to take him to a psychiatrist to consider depression meds, to see how he did off of it for a couple of months.
Less than a week later, he had been in a wonderful mood -- to the point of being silly and giddy all evening -- for 3 days in a row. The kind of mood that I don't see him in often, and when I do I think to myself, "he should be like this more often." One evening he even realized he had forgotten to bring home a homework assignment. I thought, "oh no, here we go, his evening is ruined." But he talked through his options with me, looked a little uncertain, and said, well, okay, I guess I'll have to tell my teacher I don't have it. I'll tell her I'll make it up at lunch if she wants me to. That was it! He didn't mention it again. I didn't say anything about his mood, because I really don't think I can know anything after just a few days -- it could be coincidental. The next day, he said to me that he thinks being off the Singulair is "working." He has now told me that a couple of more times.
I am tentative, but amazed. Even if my son does have a predisposition to be depressed, maybe the Singulair was making everything worse, and things really can improve for him. I am afraid to be to hopeful. At the same time, I feel guilty for giving this medicine to him for 7 years without a second thought.
As an aside, my son has periodically complained of leg pains, that I always told him were growing pains.
I would love any feedback that anyone can give me. So far (these two weeks), his asthma has been controlled with pulmacort, zyrtec and albuterol, so that aspect is okay.

Hi All, I am here for the first time in desperation trying to ascertain if my problems are Advair related. I have been on it for over 20 years (started as a study patient). I probably would be dead if it hadn't come along - seriously - and I had been on prednisone a lot. But, to add a voice to what others are saying, I can't sleep, and always wake with the most terrible headache, along with other general aches and fatigue. I was coping so so until I was rear-ended and developed some neck issues. Now I live with never ending headaches and fatigue and a tendency towards depression. Pain killers and sleeping pills get me through the winter months and then in the summer with lots of activity outside I rebound so that I can go through another yearly slide downward. What is really a killer is that I can't get going in the early mornings and have been hassled by my employer who has determined by a psychologist that I am a malingerer because there is little proof of physical illness! If I didn't have a history of having been, and still being, a very hardworking and persistent individual I would think I was going nuts (I'm 60). If anyone has a similar story, please comment further. Thanks

I have had two sons on Singular. My three-year old had drastic behavioral changes about a month after starting to take Singulair. He suddenly had severe separation anxiety, was crying and whining all the time, did not want to be alone at all. Normally he is very happy go lucky and we did not see his bright cheerful smile for weeks. I took him to his pediatric doctor and described the behavior and she immediately said to take him off the Singulair. After two weeks, he was back to his normal, happy self. My older son is 5 and has been on Singulair for over a year. I consulted with his allergist right away after my 3-year-old was having trouble. I wanted to take him off the Singulair and he advised against it, because my 5 year old has more serious asthma and allergies. When he first started he had nightmares, and when I mentioned it to a friend whose son is also on Singulair, she said, oh, give it to him in the morning instead of night and that will help with the nightmares. That did help. Yesterday, I decided to take him off of it. It seems like he's always coughing and congested, he complains often of growing pains in his legs that will make him scream and cry and beg for medicine to make the pain go away. He becomes emotionally uncontrollable - i.e. he will have crying jags and when I try to console him or ask him to stop crying he'll say he can't help it and he'll say, "You don't understand, I can't control it." He has also complained of headaches and I wondered how would a 5-year-old even know what a headache is? I feel very naive and am thankful for sites like this because you will not always get this information from your health care providers and also the drug companies. If you are like me, and you've ended up in the emergency room and also calling 911 because your child is having and asthma attack, you be be so afraid you'll give your kids whatever the doctor prescribes and you'll look at it as the lesser of two evils - do you want to be in the emergency room or can you live with the side effects. It has taken me a while to get smart about this. There has to be a better solution out there.

I, like everyone else here, was SO RELIEVED to see that others experienced the same effects as me on doxy. It was prescribed to me for fairly minor acne, mainly cysts. It worked, but I have been taking it for a month and a half and I have NOT felt like myself for a month and a half. This drug is awful for mood swings!!!! I have never experienced this in my life, I was literally about to make an appointment with a psychologist to see if I was having some kind of an onset for bipolar disorder. I will never ever take this again, ever! I literally flipped out on people for no reason and would cry for NO reason, I never have been that way. My moods were up and down all through the day and all through the week, I thought it was extreme pms at first! If you start to experience this also, just know that this drug is not worth what it does to your mental health whatsoever! If anyone was even depressed about having acne, this doesn't clear it up enough anyway so you'll have a little less acne and more emotional crap to deal with! THANK YOU TO EVERYONE THAT POSTED HERE!

I had the Mirena placed Dec.22 2008. Yes it was extremely painful to have it placed. I do not have children but one miscarriage. I did do a lot of research before my husband & I decided this may be right for us. With much disappointment I had it removed last Wed. Jan 14th. I have dealt with depression & bipolar for years and I want to emphasize to anyone dealing with this as well to seriously reconsider. I was quite stable for awhile and as soon as the Mirena was placed I fell apart. I had 3 manic episodes in 3 weeks, no will to live and unbelievably sad. There was no way I could work or function even at home. I see my counselor weekly & my psychologist every other week. We were on top of it and as soon as I had the Mirena removed I started to bounce right back. I was so shocked how awful this made me feel.My gynecologist is going to speak to the drug rep not only to get my money back for the damn thing but to push to have this warning posted. Please take this seriously because if it were not for my support network I don't know if I would be alive to warn some of you of my experience.

My son is 11 years old. He has been on Singulair for about six years. Ihave taken him to see a psychologist twice because of his terrible mood swings. He was diagnosed with depression last year. I am very concerned about this drug now. He has also suffered from migraines for two years. I also pulled him out of school and started homeschooling him because of the stress of school was causing three migraines a month. I also have a 19 year old boy who is not on singulair now. He took it for 8 years and was diagnosed with ADHD. He also went through depression as a child. I am making a appointment for my son to go back to his allergy doc tomorrow. Also I am not blaming my sons illness on singulair, but I am terrible concerned that it could have harmed my sons.

We have a 5 year old daughter who has been on singulair for about 2 - 3 years. She went on singulair due to coughing asthma. We were soo happy about how well the medication worked, it took about three months, but wow, she finally got over her coughing and was living a more active life. I actually was soo impressed with it, I remember mentioning it and promoting it to some of our daughters friends' parents with children in similar situations....wow do I ever feel awful. Anyway, our daughter came down with a terrible flu a few weeks ago and although she didn't seem feverish, had not one, but 2 night terrors, something that we have been worried about and comforting her with for a couple of years. These 2 threw the 2 of us over the edge this time....we thought we had to get her to a psychologist.....she was terrified, and although we were holding her and comforting her, she was still screaming for us, and there was NOTHING we could do this time....we were doubting ourselves and the environments she was exposed to......what could have happened in her life to make her have such awful dreams??? It was about a 1/2 hour later when my husband asked about the possible side effects of the singulair.....I ran and grabbed the pamphlet, of course this is the first time that I actually sat down and read it, which I should have done some time ago....anyway it was then that I discovered how many issues weren't normal that everyone just kept ensuring us was fine. We had been questioning ADHD for some time, and had actually had it on our list to discuss with her teacher as she was sooo hyper on a regular basis...at the age of 5 she still couldn't sit through a movie at a movie theater, as much as she loved going, she couldn't sit through it....anyway, the only thing that made it difficult to think she could have ADHD was she was such a great learner. She was very eager to learn and loved learning and teaching things. But when giving her instructions or asking her to listen, she'd be so jumpy. She complained of severe leg pains which we chalked up to growing pains...poor thing! Her temper tantrums were out of this world.....she is a child that is soo full of love, but when she was in tantrum mode, she was soo destructive and she would feel soooooo awful for her actions, it was like she couldn't control herself. We just feel awful that we couldn't help her and we didn't realize that what she was experiencing was not so much disobedience, but an imbalance due to the medication. We have since taken her off the singulair, we took her off of it immediately following reading the pamphlet. We found that she was VERY emotional for about 3 days, then she pretty well recovered. She has since become a normally active 5 year old, she is soo good, and has not experienced any night terrors, complained of leg pains, and absolutely no tantrums. Oooh how we love her so much.

I have had my mirena for about 9 months now. I thought it was great at first. I moved away from my family to be with my fiance and ever since then I have had such bad anxiety, depression, mood swings like crazy, very low sex drive and bad acne like I never had before. My skin was always very clear. I always have had depression and anxiety but never this bad. I just feel like I hate the world! I thought that it was just that I was homesick and taking it out on my fiance until I had stumbled across this sight. The only thing is that I am not having pains anywhere or excessive weight gain although I am bloated and I look like I am 5 months pregnant. Now what I would like to know is if this is really all caused by the mirena or if it is all in my head? I have a 17 year old and an 11 year old and now I am living with his 3 kids and the last thing I want is to have this removed and find out that it was not the mirena that was giving me all these symptoms. Can someone please help me with some answered questions? Thank you so much!!

I am so pleased i came across this site. I have been struggling with extremely bad moods, confusion and now even seeing a psychologist due to the bad thoughts I've had and can't explain. I've been paranoid with friends I've known for years distrusted and not had no reason to!! Have felt pretty mad!! I've also had a physical fight with my sister and we haven't fought since childhood (ahem, we are both in our thirties!). I can't concentrate, my memory is impaired and so slow on the uptake-my sense of humor has all but disappeared! I felt like a fattie and never had a gut and hip weight gain like this in my life. I simply don't eat enough to warrant the gain. Boobs, so sore, are now equaling the size of pammies, which if I had a sex drive to flaunt them it would be a good thing. I felt pratically asexual!! :(( No motivation, lack of drive at work..simply too much to cope with. Grinding my teeth, pain caused by doing so in my jaw.

So this is coming out pdq. I want my sanity back and not to mention my mind! I want to be ME again. :(

I've been on topamax at 400mg 2x a day for about 8 years now. It is a great drug but it has HORRIBLE side effects! It ( along with lamictal) gives me WONDERFUL seizure control. And it is safe for pregnancy. BUT it has destroyed my memory. short term and long term I cant remember much of anything! The sexual side effects is just awful. It makes reaching an orgasm almost impossible! I am very scared that I may have full blown alzheimers by the time I am 30!

Has anyone gained they're memory back after stopping topamax?

I have been on Wellbutrin XL for 2 years with no ill side effects and it has worked well. 2 1/2 months ago my script changed to the 'generic' BudeprionXL. Since this change, I have been experiencing severe muscle and joint pain, my hands go numb, my skin crawls to the point that I have scratched myself to the point of bleeding. Sleeplessness has just recently started to occur and my teeth have also become very sensitive. General irritability has also set in. I have not yet started to get the headaches most get with the Budeprion and it a good thing as I'm already taking 1600 mg a day of Advil to try and arrest the muscle and joint pain. After reading these other ill effects of this drug I'm now very scared and will be calling my doctor to get her to represcribe Wellbutrin -only- 'no generic'. It is clear to me the FDA did not do the proper research or makes me think TEVA has a friend in the FDA's office.

My 6 y/o daughter has been taking Singular for approx. 2 years. She began to have regular stomach pains shortly there after. She was sent to Children's hospital where they put her on a laxitive which made things worse. Then we began testing for food allergies only to find out that she tested positive for a 3 page list of foods. We eliminated those food and had her tested again. She was subsequently allergic to the foods we eliminated. She was recently down to rice, a few meats and some vegetables. Guess what, she is now allergic to those foods.

All this time she has been complaining of severe leg pain, eye pain, throat pain, numbness and tingling in her hands a feet, all of which come an go. I have reported this to all the doctors and specialists we have seen. She had undergone countless blood tests to rule out autoimmune disorders and all come up negative.

She began to develop severe anxiety and just had the blues most of the time. She would be crying and saying off the wall things like, "I don't think my fish is happy". She couldn't stand to be away from me and would stress out about even weather or not she would sit by me at a restaurant. I mentioned this to all of the doctors. They said to not make too much of it. One suggested she see a psychologist. NOT ONE DOCTOR EVER LOOKED AT THE SINGULAR.

Finally about 4 weeks ago my neighbor who is a scientist at a pharmaceutical company called me and told me about the "black box" warning that had just come out on Singular. I took both of my children off of it immediately. My daughter went through about a 10 day period where her anxiety got worse and then it was just gone. We are adding foods back into her diet and at this point she has not had any severe allergic reactions.

The last 2 years have been a complete nightmare for her and for us. I am a medical professional and I have had doctors treat me like a hypocondriac, hypersensitive, attention seeking mother. I feel so justified and saddened by the recent findings all at the same time. Most of all I am so grateful that we figured this out before things go even worse.

Please let me know if anyone else is suffering food related reactions as a side effect.

I have had endo for about 9 years now. 6 surgeries later, I decide to try the Lupron Shot. I took the 3 month dose twice. I did not experience any side effects until the 2nd month, which included hot flashes, mood swings, sleepiness, no interest in sex, weight gain, horrible headaches, loss of memory, pains in all my bones, breast tenderness, blured vision and so on. I am now off the shot after being on it for 6 months, and I am worse now then I was then. My pain is back from the Endo, my stomach feels like there is a huge ball in it, I have extremes of sever diarrhea to constipation. I feel like Im going to throw up every other hour..sometimes I do. My bones hurt worse than ever. I still have no memory and I cannot concentrate very well. My Dr. will not allow me to have a hyst because he feels I am to young. I am 27 married with a child..how much older do I have to be to get some relief? So, yes I liked Lupron, it did help. but I would rather get this crap taken out than go through all of this again.

To a small population of people, this drug has an immediate detrimental effect to mood. In my case it caused a strong urge to commit suicide within 5 hours. The doctors all said it was impossible. I was inclined to believe them since these drugs are not meant to be effective for days after treatment initiation. However, my reaction cannot be ignored or dismissed.
The prescribing physician (Robert Moffat, MD in Longmont, Colorado) suggested I try it again because he was so certain it was my problem. I did try it again, and I had the same reaction. And so I filed a complaint against him.

Incidentally, I was not taking this medication for depression. It was for nocturnal panic attacks.

I am not saying people should not try it. I just suggest that FOR THE FIRST 24 HOURS WHEN YOU TAKE THIS MEDICATION YOU SHOULD NOT BE ALONE. It probably works great for some. Also see ******

After reading all the horror stories on here, me and my husband soon began to realize that we were having a lot of the side effects listed here and not listed on my son's actual Singulair prescription. The side effects my son had were behavioral changes, irrational behavior, inattentiveness, not able to stay on task or stay still -- in fact he broke his arm twice being so hyper, yelling, screaming and just plain mean.

We took our son off of Singulair as a trial for a few days. Immediately we began to notice differences in his behavior. He wasn't as agitated and quick to yell or get angry. (He's only 5 years old). He actually would be listening when we would speak to him. He would sit calmy and read books and the one huge thing he would do was look at us and smile. He even said to my husband once, "I love you Daddy," which just brought tears to our eyes. I never realized what a Singulair fog he was in and what it did to him. Here we were pretty close to getting him evaluated for ADHD or even Aspergers. So now we're in the same boat as others that are searching for other asthma meds to give my son. Right now we have gone back to Pulmicort, Xopenex, Nasonex and Allegra. I'm so glad I read this forum because I was desperately searching for answers for my sons behavioral issues. Oh, by the way he was on Singulair for 1-1/2 years.

My 10 year old son has taken Singulair on and off since he was 5 years old and has been on it for the past 3.5 years. My son at an early age was affected by a bad marriage and then the divorce when he was 5 yrs old. So we always suspected that his behavior issues were caused by this and I had done everything I possibly could to give them the help he needed to get over and through his issues. He was held back his first year of Kindergarden and during his second year midstream he was placed in a special class for behavioral problem children. Nothing ever seemed to help him, everytime we would see some progress and encouragement we were always blind sighted by a behavior that was always worse. Two steps forward and them 5 steps backwards. I always knew that his problems would never get better overnight so I just kept on going. He was diagnosed with ADHD but because he has some ticking issues I had to put him on Strattera which was did not do a thing for him. I always described him as my Dr. Jeckyll/ Mr. Hyde child. He could be really good and sit still and behave but I think he had to try really hard to do so. He eventually was always overpower by the impulse to show negative behaviors. Defiant, extremely impulsive, always negative and completely miserable all the time. He also went through phases of compulsions. There was always a compulsion of the month- germs, bathroom habits, noises, repetitive words. He hated school and always complained of a stomach ache which i thought he was always faking to get out of school. He had confrontations in school everyday for most of the day. I often thought some of this was because of being tired all the time. We had battled over bedtime every single night. He was terrified to go to bed alone, I tried everything to get him to sleep alone. I wore myself out falling asleep next to him, I would then go to my own bed only to be up with him half the night going back and forth. I gave in many a night and slept with him just so we could get a good nights sleep. At age 8.5 I finally got him to go to sleep alone but the lights haf to be on and he has to know that I am still awake before he will fall asleep. He would always say he didn't want to go to sleep because when he does he has bad thoughts about me and people that he loves. He always had an extremely hard time excepting the word "no"- he would flip out and hit his head with whatever was handy, throw things, break things, scream holler etc. It would take hours to get over it. When he did he would be very remorseful and lovable. He was always in turmoil. Finally in February of this year, this graduated to a new level where he would want to just kill himself and would actually go and pull a knife out of the drawer and just shake with anger as he held the knife to his throat. I was terrified although i really didn't think he was going to harm himself he just wanted to scare me. Then at the end of March when i first heard the news about the possible side effects of Singulair, I had only heard about the suicide effect. Oh great just what I needed was this medicine causing him to do that. The doctor was thinking about taking him off if this summer because he wanted to see if he out grew his seasonal allergies so I took him off immediately. Well I had no idea about the other side effects until my son turned into a completely different kid. School noticed a huge difference in him! His grades went up, his is able to control his behavior, he is happy he is NORMAL. I never suspected this drug as the culprit due to the timing of taking it. Our lives have changed completely. When i first found this site, it seemed as though some of the parents were writing about my child. It is amazing. My son still has some old habits to break but overall he is a wonderful and normal 10 year old boy. He did not outgrow his seasonal allergies but Allegra seems to help in through it. I get so angry- his whole early childhood was ruined by this medicine. He is a labled kid in our school system. This whole experience has opened up my eyes. Thank you for letting me share my story.

My son, now 10...has been on singular off and on, since I don't' know how long...today was the second time he was intentionally hurting his cat. He has told me time and time again about visions while he was awake, violent ones, he argues with anyone and everyone. He has no friends at school. Last year I took him off all his medications to see why his behavior was so drastic, he got so calm, it was like a new boy, but then when he started back to public school...he had to be put back on them again, and again with the singular...
If it was not for this site..I would think my son was sick mentally. But after this...he will see his doctor tomorrow and no more singular...
When I took him off all the meds I told his doctor I was really worried about his behavior and they said it will be okay...he went right back to just out of control. Could not sleep, concentrate at school or at home. He is so smart and he is failing school..not because he is slow, but they kept saying he was add...but when I home schooled him and took him off his meds...he was so great, obdient..not perfect by no means, but just a normal boy...
I hear him right now, in the other room, fighting imaginary people...he seems to go go go..and with no sleep...the dreams in the day time I just thought were his imagination...but now that i hear about other children like him...they are to him real..just like he tells me..he also always tells me how mad he stays..he says all the time I am just angry mom, and I would say at what..he just says everything...
Thank God for this site....now i know..it is not in his head, it is just like I told his doctor...it is his medication..now I know just the one it is..
THank you all..
God Bless all the others here suffering with the same problems...it is just shocking that we as parents and patients, even after telling the doctors, are right...I feel vindicated...I will be printing this off and taking it with us to the doctors...

Here is an example of the fact that the medical community recognizes that there are gene based drugs. Because Singulair is modeled to be a receptor antagonist to the cysLT1 receptor and the cysLT1 receptor is a gene, I'd say that Singulair should be described as a gene based drug. I don't really care how anybody wants to play with the definition. CysLT1 is a gene with known variations. Why isn't there just an "across the board" warning for all gene based drugs that unexpected side effects are possible???? And, that doctors should watch out for individual reactions.

WMJ. 2005 Aug;104(6):61-6.Links
Gene-based drug prescribing: clinical implications of the cytochrome P450 genes.Musana AK, Wilke RA.
Department of General Internal Medicine, Marshfield Clinic, WI, USA.

The Institute of Medicine recently mandated an increased effort to improve patient safety and reduce medical error. With the description of genetic polymorphisms in the drug metabolizing enzymes, the field of pharmacogenetics may improve medical care through a reduction in both therapeutic failure and adverse drug reaction. Investigators at the Marshfield Clinic in central Wisconsin are piloting the process of gene-based drug prescribing in a variety of contexts. This paper reviews the field of cytochrome P450 (CYP) genetics and explores factors that impact the utility of this information in clinical practice.

PMID: 16218319

Last week, I had a PhD psychologist tell me that she is seeing a lot of patients come forward with Singulair stories, much like these. She's had at least 8 patients so far, and she has now added questions about allergy and Singulair to her patient intake procedures. Basically, they've all suffered from some sort of depression and personality change.

My 54-year-old fit, social, successful husband was put on Singulair in January for newly diagnosed asthma. He developed a depression with anxiety, irrational fears, avoidance, mood swings and even one episode of suicidal thoughts out of nowhere. He saw a psychiatrist and a therapist, tried medications, yoga, a vacation, meditation, breathing exercises - everything! But he kept getting worse.

The day he was throwing patio furniture then sobbing uncontrollably was the day he realized he couldn't work in his condition. He negotiated a 60-day leave without pay. Even that didn't help. It was crazy. How could a man who managed hundreds of employees and a major health service system for 20 years suddenly be so paralyzed with fear that he couldn't walk down a beach or go into a Walgreen’s?

We found this site May 26th. He stopped the Singulair immediately. It has been 10 days and he is already 80-90% back to normal. Thank God.

Partly I am writing because it is so hard to read of parents' guilt that they "should have known" etc. Look, unlike a child, my husband is mature and very verbal; he is also a psychiatrist (!) with a capacity for self-examination and a language to describe his inner experience. And me, I'm a psychologist (!) trained in understanding people and I know him very well. And yet with all that training and skill and consultation and treatment, WE STILL COULDN’T FIGURE THIS OUT! So please, don't make yourself feel any worse with guilt. This is awful and tragic enough already.

I would add that the onset of mood and behavioral problems is so insidious that it is hard to connect the problems to the Singulair. Also, I suspect that children and adolescents are at greater risk because of their immature emotional developmental level. An adult l suspect may need some genetic or personal predisposition to mood disturbance, or stress, or both, to trigger these side effects. My husband had a depression episode 30 years ago and had recent traumas that certainly could have triggered the depression. But how treatment resistant that depression was, and those strange paralyzing fears and extreme anxiety – all that I blame squarely on the Singulair.

I have made a report to the FDA. I urge you to do the same.

I am sure that all kinds of people told Kate Miller that Concernedcitizen was a cuckoo or a Merck competitor. I haven't been employed by a pharma company in many years. Everybody ever employed by a pharma company higher than a certain level (practically the mailroom) knows this stuff and what to look for.

I think that I am about ready to say my opinion on how montelukast works and why these problems develop. It will just be my opinion. I need to try to find actual proof but I may forego that and just say it soon.