Singulair and relationship

I have a 4yr old boy who has been on singulair for 5 months. Before he began singulair he was the most happy, kind, gentle, loving boy. We had an awesome close relationship. I enjoyed just sitting there watching him play. I could not wait for him to learn something new, but EVERYTHING has changed now. I took him off of singulair on Sept 19, 2008 after accidentally running into this site while looking up children and OCD. Thank God I did. It has been 12 days since I found this and took him off. I couldn't type then because I was to upset. My son who never had ANY mental problems or anxiety is now completely riddled with it. Instead of playing all day care free like 4yr old are supposed to do, my son spends his days now clinging to me in fear that I may leave or go into a room without him and he will not be there to open the door. He obsessively has to open every door now. He spends his days getting upset at the smallest things. He now gets mad at everything I say, or I don't say it right. Our relationship is not the same now, and I am devastated. Before Singulair he slept through the night every night. Now he wakes up every couple of hours to go to the bathroom and say "are you still there mom?" ok "I love you" "Don't let the bed bugs bite" I have to answer "I love you to" and "you either" If anything different is said he will go nuts, and he will obsessively say this over and over and over again. This is not my son. He is a totally different person. I am so very scared that this poison has permanently ruined him. I mean he is so young and his brain is developing. It has been developing with this poison in it, that has ruined him. It has been 12 days and he is still doing the same ocd stuff. He still seems really agitated. His muscles hurt, his tummy hurts, his eyes hurt, his ankles hurt, and he has diarrhea. My beautiful boy is now mentally and physically SICK because of singulair. I feel really bad to, because I did not know at first that the singulair was causing this and I was always getting on to him for his behavior and putting him in his room. At pre-school a couple of days after first giving singulair to him he started crying ALL DAY at school, and I made him stay there because I thought it was just because he had gotten a new teacher and he needed to get used to her. I feel terrible!! Does anyone know if the ocd will go away or has he now learned the behavior?

My son is 6 years old, and I started crying when I read the above stories. My son, too, was a completely different person when he took Singulair. Prior to taking it, we had a wonderful, close relationship and he was a well behaved child that excelled in school and got along well with friends. His behavior changed for the worse, but until now, I didn't connect it to the use of Singulair-I thought maybe he had childhood depression but didn't know why, as his life is stable and happy, and no major life changes had happened to cause the mood swings.
He would say his life was bad and he wanted to die for the slightest thing, he would say he hated us and punch us for just simple time outs that he usually complied to and he never ever hit us before. I have had him off of Singulair the past month, and give him Zyrtec occasionally when he really needs it, and he has not had one major moody episode, and he is back to his happy self again. I am joining the class action lawsuit above.

Have been experiencing the same serious behavioral issues (screaming, launching every toy he has out of his room, knocking over his night stand, hitting, kicking and just being hateful) with my 4 year old who has been on Singulair for 2 years as I'm noticing many of you have here. My wife and I have a wonderful relationship and happy home and tons of love and support from other family that's close buy so the kid has a very nice environment. We have taken him off the medication as of yesterday. I have consulted his doctor but I'm anxious to hear what methods of treatment for the asthma all of have chosen in replacement of Singulair or did you just maintain with an inhaled maintenance program with something like Pulmicort? Also, how long was after taking your child off of Singulair did take to for the outburst to subside and the behavior to become more mellow and normal (what is normal for a 4 year old?). Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Our son was put on Singular almost 2 years ago to help with his "moderate" asthma. It has been the hardest 2 years for our family. My son who was already very senstive became very depressed. He showed no interest in anything. He was always sad and very down on himself. He had awful night terrors/nightmares. He didn't want to go to school or do anything. We continued to sign him up for sports/piano/scouts and it was a battle to get him to go. He always had headaches, which I thought were because of dehydration and made him drink water. We had him seeing a therapist trying to help him with the sleeping problems and the depression. We switched his room with his sister to physically make him closer to us at night. He was anxious and very irritable. If something went wrong, he couldn't handle it and had complete meltdowns. If he didn't eat anything for a while and his blood sugar got low, he was uncontrollable. To add to the problem was he was never hungry so I would have to force him to eat something about every 2-3 hours to prevent the meltdown.

The good news is that he has been off of Singular for over a month now and he is a new kid. He is excited to go to practice and will ask his dad to play catch with him in the yard. He is happier and we have not heard once "this is the worst day ever" which we had heard all the time before. He has not had one headache and seems to have a little bit of his appetite back. He is happy and holding his head high. Now, he still doesn't want to go to school (what 8 year old boy does), but he doesn't fight me when I tell him it is time to go. He does not have the meltdowns or the irritability. He even showed some empathy to my husband last week.

My husband and I are amazed at how different he is. We are also very upset that for almost 2 years we made his life miserable by forcing him to take this drug. I think for kids that are already sensitive to things it heightens everything! I am filing a complaint with the FDA and spreading the news to all my family and friends. I hope this information helps! I know I have learned a lot from reading these posts.

In response to all the brain research theories, I just wanted to say that when my son (at age 6) was on Singulair there was a noticeable relationship between food and mood. Although his weight was not affected noticeably he would almost predictably have meltdowns if he skipped a snack or we had dinner late. And I remember that I would do almost anything, including spoon feeding him like a baby, in the morning, knowing that, after a few bites he would become 100x more manageable.

I mention this because even though one could argue that this phenomenon happens with many kids and adults it really was sharply apparent in my son - and of course his behavior was more extreme. Like the mother who mentioned a hypoglycemic-like reaction, I felt that my son's explosive behavior and intolerance at these times quickly improved after eating.

By the way, he has been off more than a year now and does not have this problem any more. Also he is much less lethargic.

Singulair does interact with the astrocyte in the brain.

The role of the cysLT1 receptor (Singulair blocks this receptor) and the astrocyte in the brain has been studied. For anyone from Merck to say that there are no mechanisms by which Singulair can affect the
brain is ludicrous. If the Chinese researchers are correct, then Singulair very clearly affects the brain. Certainly, we don't know exactly how or when the effect would be good or bad. Under what circumstances would it be beneficial and under what circumstances would it be harmful.

For quite a while, researchers have been hypothesizing about the role of the astrocyte in brain function. If we go to look for theories, we will find them. Here is the theory of Dr. Dale Antanitus. I am no here to promote anyone's theory in particular but just to point out that they exist.

http://www.antanitus.com/hypothesis

We can see that the Chinese researchers have gone forward to look at potential links between the cysLT1 receptor (Singulair receptor) and inflammatory response in the brain. The 2008 study showed a link between the astrocyte and the cysLT1 receptor (Singulair receptor)

1: Glia. 2008 Jan 1;56(1):27-37. Links
Activation of CysLT receptors induces astrocyte proliferation and death after oxygen-glucose deprivation.

Huang XJ, Zhang WP, Li CT, Shi WZ, Fang SH, Lu YB, Chen Z, Wei EQ.
Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, People's Republic of China.

We recently found that 5-lipoxygenase (5-LOX) is activated to produce cysteinyl leukotrienes (CysLTs), and CysLTs may cause neuronal injury and astrocytosis through activation of CysLT(1) and CysLT(2) receptors in the brain after focal cerebral ischemia. However, the property of astrocyte responses to in vitro ischemic injury is not clear; whether 5-LOX, CysLTs, and their receptors are also involved in the responses of ischemic astrocytes remains unknown. In the present study, we performed oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD) followed by recovery to induce ischemic-like injury in the cultured rat astrocytes. We found that 1-h OGD did not injure astrocytes (sub-lethal OGD) but induced astrocyte proliferation 48 and 72 h after recovery; whereas 4-h OGD moderately injured the cells (moderate OGD) and led to death 24-72 h after recovery. Inhibition of phospholipase A(2) and 5-LOX attenuated both the proliferation and death. Sub-lethal and moderate OGD enhanced the production of CysLTs that was inhibited by 5-LOX inhibitors. Sub-lethal OGD increased the expressions of CysLT(1) receptor mRNA and protein, while moderate OGD induced the expression of CysLT(2) receptor mRNA. Exogenously applied leukotriene D(4) (LTD(4)) induced astrocyte proliferation at 1-10 nM and astrocyte death at 100-1,000 nM. The CysLT(1) receptor antagonist montelukast attenuated astrocyte proliferation, the CysLT(2) receptor antagonist BAY cysLT2 reversed astrocyte death, and the dual CysLT receptor antagonist BAY u9773 exhibited both effects. In addition, LTD(4) (100 nM) increased the expression of CysLT(2) receptor mRNA. Thus, in vitro ischemia activates astrocyte 5-LOX to produce CysLTs, and CysLTs result in CysLT(1) receptor-mediated proliferation and CysLT(2) receptor-mediated death. (c) 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

PMID: 17910051

The astrocyte has been studied to see how it functions in the brain. The astrocyte:

1. may perform a role in the physical structuring of the brain
2. may perform a role in providing neurons with nutrients
3. may perform a minor role in the maintenance of the blood brain barrier
4. may perform a role in neurotransmitters
5. may perform a role in the regulation of ion concentration in the extracellular spaces
6. may perform a role in neuronal regulation of blood flood
7. may perform a role in the protection and repair of neurons

TO LIE TO PEOPLE REGARDING THEIR HEALTH IS CRIMINAL AND SHOULD BE PROSECUTED. PEOPLE OUT THERE ARE GETTING SICKER IF THEY ARE EXPERIENCING SIDE EFFECTS BECAUSE MERCK IS LYING. SOME PEOPLE MAY NOT EXPERIENCE SIDE EFFECTS BUT WHY NOT TELL THE TRUTH AND SAY THAT THERE COULD BE SOME PEOPLE WHO HAVE PSYCHIATRIC SIDE EFFECTS BECAUSE THERE IS A PATHWAY FOR THAT TO HAPPEN.

I read these posts and regarding my being quoted as saying that it is unclear whether there are leukotriene receptors in the brain, that isn't true, there are leukotriene receptors in the brain and the relationship between neural systems involved in inflammation and mood is well established. I don't think the misquote was deliberate, I wasnt that definitive when I commented to the reporter on the 'breaking' story (she called me because I had just blogged about it and I updated the blog after I got off the phone). There are a number of parallels with other drugs used to treat medical conditions that have been associated with psychiatric side effects, you can follow the links from the March 27 post "If they dont kill us they will drive us crazy" at
http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/blog.html

Doug Bremner MD

I started on Singulair about 7 months ago and I tell you I've been sick all winter with asthma. I've had respiratory infections, bronchitis, etc. I don't smoke at all nor am I around smokers. I've found myself depressed and having suicidal thoughts. My mood swings have been off the charts. I get mad about the most insignificant events and sometimes I even get violent. I've broken dishes and even kicked the garbage can into pieces. I am by no means ever violent but after reading everyone's testimony about Singulair, can my symptoms be a result of taking this drug for 6 months now. If so, Merck needs to be held responsible. I lost out on a 5 year relationship because of my behavior.

My sister is 48 and now hospitalized for suicide watch. She takes Sinulair or took and now they are looking into the relationship of the two. I am happy it was caught before it was too late.
This drug needs investigations.. real investigations before we lose our loved ones...