Wednesday night I got some coffee before my night class because I was rather tired and would otherwise fall asleep during the lecture. I had taken my second Advair puff for the day less than an hour before drinking the coffee. During the class I started to feel a little jittery but I thought it had worn off by the time I went to bed later on. Nope, not quite. I lay in bed, trying to fall asleep, and realized I felt like I was vibrating. This was especially annoying because I needed my precious sleep and because there was an evil midterm to be taken the next day.
Wake up Thursday to find that I still felt a bit twitchy. I didn’t drink coffee because I wasn’t going to take any chances, but the twitchiness lasted all day anyway which was very strange. Go to the doctor after school, and spent the time in the waiting room tapping my fingers to get the energy out. Doc says he thinks it’s just a freak idiosyncrasy and to take a sleep aid.
Get home and just for kicks, go on webmd.com and see if it says anything about Advair and caffeine, and lo and behold, these are drugs that interact! Aha! I’ve taken my advair and then had coffee at school and been fine before, but I realized it was because there was about usually 2 hours between the two. On Wednesday night there was less than an hour’s time between the meds and coffee, and ohhh did I pay for it.
So kids, read those nifty booklets that come with your medications and then you won’t vibrate for 24 hours!
I looked up Advair, and the active ingredient seems to have vasoconstrictive properties. That sounds odd–aren’t most stimulants vasodilators? Isn’t vasodilation what you’re looking for when you’re trying to breathe in more air, not vasoconstriction? Perhaps I’m just severely confused.
(Also, I apparently looked up the topical version, not the inhaler version, but one would think it wouldn’t work in totally opposite ways…)
It’s always a bad idea to mix stimulants, particularly if steroids are involved. At least you didn’t do any damage or anything, though!
Many stimulant drugs, like epinephrine, constrict the blood vessels but dilate the bronchioles. In asthma control, the vasoconstriction is basically a side effect; it’s the bronchodilation you’re after. (In treating anaphylactic shock, though, you want both; vasoconstriction helps bring up the blood pressure and improve perfusion, while the bronchodilation lets you breathe. That’s why they use epinephrine for severe allergic reactions.)
Watch out for over the counter antihistamines if you are taking SSRI’s. The two kinds of drugs don’t always interact well–I almost fell asleep at work and had to spend most of the day walking around in my office in order to stay awake because I mixed these types of drugs.
Doctors are supposed to warn patients about these things but sometimes they forget. However, information on drug side effects and interactions can be found online or in the Physician’s Desk Reference. It’s a good idea to do a bit of checking.
Always, always, always, always ask your pharmacist about drug interactions when you get a new medication. He or she is more likely to be aware of problems than your GP is.
I think when I started the Advair back in September I asked about drug interactions, but I meant with the other medications I take. I guess my pharmacist didn’t think to mention caffeine. Nice guy, too, but doesn’t work at my CVS anymore. Ah well.
Most don’t tell you that you should NOT mix Cipro with caffeine at ALL. It will make your heart race 900mph. No, not in a cheap thrill way, but in a this things going to hammer out of my chest way.
And many drugs should not be mixed with grapefruit. Yes…grapefruit. Seems something in the grapefruit binds with the drug and concentrates it in a bad way in your blood or some such thing. You can look it up.
Also look at the more rare side effects of the drugs. Doctors and pharmacists never enlighten anyone on those. I walked around for 2 months figuring I was a blithering idiot because I couldn’t find my car, couldn’t remember where I parked it, (the first month it was a new car and I kept forgetting what it looked like) gotta love those panic alarm key chains! Kept forgetting people’s names, who I talked to, couldn’t speak because I kept putting wrong words into sentences. Turns out Protonix (acid reducer-proton inhibitor) can cause short term memory loss. Aciphex can do it too.
You should never drink milk within two hours of taking an antibiotic unless you like “intestinal distress”. Same goes for a lot of dairy.
Obvious one: when the bottle says avoid long term exposure to sun…this does NOT mean you can do short term exposure in a tanning bed.