Lyrica. My GP gave me three doses (samples) several years ago when I was starting to suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome but didn’t know what it was yet. It’s prescribed for nerve pain, among other issues.
For the three nights that I took it, I had the worst nightmares of my life–we’re talking horrible, violent, disturbing, terrifying stuff. And it did nothing for the pain.
Dilaudid. A surgeon prescribed it after I had an operation on one of my wrists for the aforementioned CTS. During the time I spent in outpatient recovery, all I did was sweat gallons, barf up foam, get a bit woozy, and then start heaving again. Several hours later, there was no one left in the joint except one nurse, me, and a guy cleaning the OR, so they called my neighbor to pick me up. I was still yorking as I got dressed, during the ride home, and for a while after that. It must have been a total of 7 or 8 hrs. of misery. And no pain relief. Come to find out, nobody in my family ever has much luck with narcotics. They make us sleepy or sick but do nothing for pain. When I got the same surgery on the other wrist, I was adamant about not having dilaudid. I think they gave me Toradol.
So let’s hear your worst stories, and there is no such thing as TMI.
A visiting pharmacist altered my steroid dose before a chemo infusion despite my oncologist’s objections. When I headed into anaphylaxis, chemo was discontinued, I was pumped up with Benadryl and monitored for a couple of hours before my chemo was resumed, at a slower rate.
Not so much the worst, as the strangest: A few years ago, I had a UTI and was put on Bactrim, and not for the first time. After several days on it, I had a strange rashy thing on my inner left thigh, and my pubic hair on that side was all full of dandruff. Like a dummy/pharmacist I am, I took another when the dose was due, and it got even bigger - about the size of a saucer. I stopped taking it, and the rash went away within a day or so and didn’t come back, nor did the UTI.
I didn’t call my doctor about it because it was the weekend; had I had trouble breathing, etc. I would not have hesitated to call 911.
I’m definitley allergic to Cipro; I broke out in hives with that.
Well, I took a few OTC anti stress herbs at the same time and really screwed up my endocrine system for a few months. At least that is what I think happened. Insomnia, severe anxiety, blue hands, etc.
Luckily it got better with time, but that was hell.
I get rashy with penicillin. My fingertips turned black one time. So now I’m on the penicillin allergy train.
Can’t remember the brand, but I took an OTC cold remedy once that wired me up for about 6 hours. Very unpleasant. I don’t use OTC cold remedys, ever.
Wellbutrin gave me terrible headaches, like my skull was splitting in half. I took it for three days before I was forced to quit. Vivactil gave me racing pulse, 120 beats per minute, resting. I lost 60lbs in six months on Prozac.
I was recently DNA tested for medication compatibility. Turns out I am a CYP2D6 poor metabolizer, which means I don’t produce enough of the liver enzymes that metabolize most anti-depressants like tri-cyclics and SSRIs. I get none of therapeutic effects and triple the side effects. It also makes me less responsive to opioids.
I was prescribed a lung drug that keeps millions of people upright and living large, my response was to near immediately become so paranoid I couldn’t tell anyone I was in trouble. Every doc I saw realised I wasn’t right but I have a history of depression etc. and it was put down to that.
It turns out all drugs in a group called anti-cholinergic send me straight and immediately to hell. There are a lot of them, some OTC. If you offered me all the money in the world to spend one minute there again I wouldn’t take it.
At the time I was the second known instance of the reaction in the world to the lung drug.
After a total knee replacement when moving me from a gurney to the ICU bed I was given a shot of morphine for the extreme pain. I do not know if it helped with the pain. I became so sick I did not care about the pain in my leg.
Imipramine made my feet just collapse from under me when taking stairs. I could lift my feet equally high while walking and it made no difference. Both up and downstairs.
I can’t remember ever personally having a bad reaction, but kaylasmom has had some awful times. She’d been taking four BP meds some four or five years (Carvedilol, Amlodipine, Lisinopril, and Hydralazine), with excellent results. She had been hospitalized twice in 2018 with complications from her CHF, either out of balance electrolytes or excess fluid retention which ended up in her lungs (or both). One night, I gave her her bedtime meds as I got ready to go to work. As I was getting into my uniform, I noticed that her lips had gotten HUGE. Like WAX LIPS huge. I called in sick to work and brought her into the ER, where she was quickly diagnosed as having a brand-new allergic reaction to the Lisinopril.
They ran bloodwork on her to be safe, and came back with the finding that here ‘lytes were out of whack AGAIN, AND she was retaining fluids AGAIN. Turns out Hydralazine can be implicated in fluid retention in patients with CHF. We dropped those two meds, and her BP numbers stayed stable, so yay.
About five or six years ago, she was sent directly from a doctor appointment to the hospital to be prepped for a cholecystectomy, to be performed as soon as she was stabilized from the acute pancreatitis that she was suffering from. That night I DID go to work, as there wasn’t any good I could do for her at the hospital. At about two in the morning, my cellphone rang. It was kaylasmom, in full-blown panic, asking me to come and take her home. It seems that the staff had given her Dilaudid for her pain, and it made her hallucinate that a gang of blind friends who she wasn’t getting along with had shown up at the hospital and were threatening to beat her up. And spread nasty rumors about her. I had to call the nurse’s station, explain to the charge nurse what was going on, and request that she see about getting kaylasmom a sedative.
I had two horrible experiences with anesthetic. Sorry, not sure what the exact formulation was.
The first time was a wisdom tooth extraction when I was about 20. I couldn;t wake up for a couple of hours. When I could I was totally disoriented and my eyes wouldn’t work in tandem. I threw up as soon as I got home and continued to throw up on and off for several days. Miserable experience all around.
The second was for a stapedectomy when I was in my forties. Again, trouble waking up, and disoriented when I did. And the nausea was unfuckingbelievable. They kept me overnight in the hospital, which is rare for the procedure, because I couldn’t stand without falling over, couldn’t see properly, retched more or less constantly, and generally wanted to die. Luckily, by noon the next day things were considerably improved.
I did have a second stapedectomy a few years later. Different anesthetic, much quicker recovery. Thanks goodness.
When I was in school in the early 1990s, the cytochrome P450 system was just being discovered and researched. (One of my professors had an office door that was completely covered with science-oriented cartoons; the best was a big rally with people holding signs that said “BAN P450.” ) More and more subtypes are being discovered all the time, in addition to more interactions and more knowledge about genetic diversities in different races and national origins and who should or should not use medications.
For example, it’s long been known that calcium channel blockers are almost useless in controlling blood pressure in blacks of African descent, or that beta blockers must be used cautiously in East Asians because they can build up toxic levels with little warning, but not the exact reasons why.
Can I just make a correction here. Black people of African descent tend to have more salt-sensitive hypertension, which means that they respond better to dietary changes and diuretics. The conventional wisdom has been that they tend to respond more poorly to ACE inhibitors, ARBs, and beta blockers and that calcium channel blockers were preferable as second line treatment. However, it has long been known that higher doses of the ACEIs and ARBs are effective and recent studies indicate that all anti hypertensives have a place in treatment as often multiple medications are needed. That said, I am not aware of any data indicating that calcium channel blockers are “almost useless” in this population and would appreciate a cite. When I can get off my phone and to a computer, I will be glad to post evidence to support the use of CCBs in this population.
A couple of years ago during a period of increased anxiety and depression, the doctor tried one particular medication.
Its effect was to drastically increase the anxiety, often making it impossible to stay still. I would get agitated that I couldn’t sit down for more than a couple of minutes.
Fortunately, I had a friend who recommended making another appointment to the psychiatrist who then told me that this was s known side affect in a small percentage of people taking the medication.
I really wish that he would have told me to watch out for it.
Another medication gave me headaches but that doctor had warned me, so I was able to quickly discontinue the med and get a substitute.
My darling wife has the joy of being allergic to about half the things on this planet. So it is not a surprise that she is allergic to Acetaminophen. Care to guess what the percentage of drugs contain it? Anything ending in–cet is out. ER staff look at you real strange when you have to explain that anagesics are limited to toradol or morphine.
Tamoxifen gave me strange abdominal pains. I was supposed to be taking it for five years for breast cancer, but on doctor’s instructions stopped after a few months.
I still wonder if the medication had anything to do with the huge fibroid I had removed last year, but neither of the doctors I’ve asked can tell me one way or the other.
) More and more subtypes are being discovered all the time, in addition to more interactions and more knowledge about genetic diversities in different races and national origins and who should or should not use medications.