This past week has in large part been spent under the painful inf...

This past week has in large part been spent under the painful influence of a potent and fairly common prescription drug that I didn't need to take. I want you to be aware of the possibility that this kind of thing happening to you or your loved one. We see the prescription drug commercials and their disclaimers on TV and are amused that anyone would take a drug with a long list of horrible side effects for some rather minor ailment. And you always think it happens to some one else. On Sept. 19, I went to a local dermatologist to have her look at a very small rash on my arm and a small cyst on my back. She extracted the "skin cells" in my back after using a local anesthetic and sent me home with 2 prescriptions, one for a lotion for the rash and, I thought, an antibiotic that the doctor had mentioned for the extraction. I had only the prescription for the oral medicine filled as I had also been given a small sample size of lotion and the area of rash was no more than a 2 inch square size. On the 20th I began taking the pills from a large card with the dosage marked for day and night doses in decreasing amounts. By the the 25th I was jittery and miserable from the inside out, could hardly breathe, or talk, my muscles were all tight and tense and hurting, my stomach was upset but I could hardly get enough food, I was completely without any energy at all. By the next day it was all I could do to get out of bed and shower, I certainly could not work or function normally, in addition to the other symptoms, my body ached, head ached, not to mention how mean I felt. I stopped taking the meds after the morning dose on the 27th, when it occurred to me that this was not the result of "stress" from taking my mother on a 6 hour trip to see her brother in hospice care on the 23rd for two days. The next day I called the pharmacy to find out what I had been prescribed and they told me Dexpak, steroid. The symptoms have continued through the next days and have begun to slowly and slightly subside, but as I write this on the 30th I am still far from feeling like myself and my eyes have become cloudy, making it difficult to see. I made it to church this morning, but that's all I have been able to do since last week. It is astounding to see the list of extreme reasons to prescribe this potent drug especially for a tiny rash on an otherwise very healthy person. Then the list of side effects, of which I have virtually every one, frightens me more and my concern is that they may not all be reversable. There are several things I didn't do along this path of taking the meds that I could have avoided all this if I had not just trusted that they were antibiotics (which I never got), and actually read the material they give you with the prescription when you pick it up. Even so, it begs the question, why would this have been prescribed in the first place?