Reglan and anxiety attack

I had an agonizing migraine this Saturday, with all the usual delightful symptoms: pain, violent vomiting,... Went to the ER. After many hours I was hooked up to an IV with Tegretol (an anti-seizure med that's effective with migraine) and Reglan (for the nausea). Within a couple of minutes after the IV drip started I realized something was wrong. My migraine pain was actually increasing. I felt a desperate sense of being connected to this IV that was feeding me drugs whose effects were suddenly unexpected. Then things spiraled from there. I went into a panic. This sense of panic was unlike anything I have ever experienced in my life (and I've had my share of hospital horrors). I thought my heart was going to explode. Luckily my friend was next to me. I told him to get a nurse. I told the nurse frantically that I didn't know what was happening to me, I was freaking out, but I begged him to do something. He said I was probably having an "anxiety attack", which can happen with Reglan ("anxiety" sounds like a euphemism for what I was living through, but whatever...). He moved quickly, and hooked up some Benadryl to the IV. I also asked him to get me out of the dark, airless room I was in, as I felt like I was going to choke from the claustrophobia. Between the Benadryl (which apparently counters the panic effects of a Reglan reaction) and standing out in a spacious, well-lit hallway, I felt a couple of degrees removed from hell. Anyhow, there's my Reglan tale. R.M., Newton, MA

At the age of 17 I was diagnosed with Acid Reflux. I was given a couple stomach medications, in which one of them was Reglan, for my nausea. I then began experiencing "severe" anxiety attacks and found myself very depressed. I was unable to be around people and sadly contiplated suicide several times, when oddly my life was great and pretty normal. I was sent to a therapist in which he also could not resolve the problem. I was put on anti-depressants which partially helped. When I experienced anxiety attacks I was force myself to sleep them off, causing myself a sleeping-disorder called insomnia. I also bagan to lactate milk, when I was not pregnant. I did not know that the Reglan WAS the cause of all my symptoms until the age of 23 when I was hospitalized. I had stopped taking all my medication for over three years and was doing very well. When I was in the ER a nurse seen that Reglan was on my chart and since I was experiencing nausea, she inserted the Relgan into my IV. Within 15 minutes I began to freak out, I was having an extreme anxiety attack. I was yelling I that I wanted go home. I felt like ripping my hair out. That was when another nurse (also a good friend of mine) seen me and said I was having a reaction to the Reglan. The doctor came in and explained that the Reglan was cause of my anxiety. After I calmed down hours later, I explained my passed symptoms and he said that all my symptoms where Reglan related side effects. I DO NOT RECOMMEND REGLAN!!! It's better to feel like or even to throw up, then to feel like taking your own life and not knowing why...

I had been prescribed Reglan for my Reflux condition and was so hopeful that this new RX would help me get through the night without losing my dinner!! Well, after only 3 days on the medication, I began to experience the most horrendous anxiety attack that I ever imagined possible!! I ended up in the ER because I swelled up like a balloon and couldn't breathe! I don't know if that is a direct affect of the Reglan, but I do know that I thought it was the end of the world for me!! I truly felt that if I could, I would have jumped out of my own skin! I couldn't breathe, I couldn't sit still, I couldn't lie down, I couldn't stand to have the ER machines hooked up to me or even stand to have the gown on!! I have several medical conditions which cause me to have to go through periodic testing and lots of blood work, etc. -- I've even been through successful brain surgery and never experienced the type of fear and anxiety I experienced after only 3 days on Reglan!! This is a very dangerous drug and any doctor considering the possibility of prescribing it to a patient, please re-consider if there is an alternative, and if not, please warn the patient about the unbelievable hell they may experience if their body cannot take this drug!! I don't want anyone to go through what I have experienced!! I am still feeling the effects and I have stopped taking the drug. I will NEVER touch Reglan again!! Thank you for the opportunity to share this experience with the hope that it will help stop others from having to go through it!!

I had to have my appendix removed -- told them before surgery that I had very bad chronic acid reflux, so I guess that's why the surgeon wrote orders for them to give me Reglan right after the surgery -- he did not specify for how long, and they kept giving it to me every four hours for the next day or so. Within 24 hours, I had terrible nausea causing violent dry heaves (there was nothing to throw up because I hadn't eaten anything for the previous 24 hours. When I did try a few sips of water or broth, I would immediately vomit that back up). I was dry heaving so hard and so continuously I was afraid I was going to break my stitches from the appendectomy. Also had extreme shortness of breath, like I was having an anxiety attack, extreme stiffness/pain in my neck and head mucles, like the back of my neck and my head were being crushed in a giant vise grip. Felt very dissociated and had trouble focusing my eyes and focusing my attention on anything. .
If I laid down to try to rest, the shortness of breath would get worse -- would feel like I was suffocating. So then I would get up and walk around a little to try to breathe better, and the violent dry heaves would start again until I was so exhausted from them I would try to lay down again to rest a little. Then the shortness of breath would start up again, and I would have to stand up . . . I went round and round like that for a solid 24 hours, no sleep, until the surgeon showed up for his rounds and decided I might be having a reaction to the Reglan, that he hadn't intended for them to keep me on it for that long. They took me off the Reglan, then the surgeon and my regular MD called in a neurologist who prescribed Flexaril for the neck stiffness and Phenergan for the nausea, instead of the Zofran they had been giving me, which wasn't helping.
Within 30 minutes of my first doses of Phenergan and Flexaril (and I had been off the Reglan for about 3-4 hours by then), I was sleeping like a baby, and continued to rest comfortably throughout the night, and was able to go home the next day with prescriptions for Phenergan, Lortab, and Flexaril. I will never, NEVER allow anyone to give me Reglan again -- I seiously felt like I was dying, and it scared the h*ll out of both my husband and me, because I am not the "sickly" type at all, The entire episode was a nightmare, and I am convinced it was directly related to the Reglan.