Strange reactions to medications

Post Reply New Topic

Not too bad on the side effects for me, usually. Mostly just drowsiness, some meds i had dry mouth. Seroquel and probably Cipralex combined to make me gain about 30 pounds. Cipralex and Celexa caused me to have frequent vivid and nervous dreams.

The only drug I had a fairly severe reaction to was sertraline. Huge spike in agitation and irritability. I was not on that med very long.

I have had strange reactions to certain medications, but not others.

The first prescription I was prescribed was Clonidine, for sleep problems. I have never had any problems with Clonidine, as it generally helps with my sleep problems. It doesn't work perfectly; no drug works perfectly 100% of the time. Clonidine sometimes doesn't work if I have a lot of stuff on my mind or if my brain suddenly decides to turn on at 2AM when I have to go to school/work/college the next day. I have to compensate in other ways such as checking Facebook, WP, YouTube, and Twitter.

I took Zoloft for the first few weeks of fourth grade, which was in late 2000, and it made me do things that I would never dare do otherwise (I am not going to say what, but it got me into big trouble), and it also made me extremely lazy in class to the point that I could NOT do any schoolwork at all. I had an aide at the time and even she couldn't do anything about my increased difficulties in class.

My mother paid for a psychatrist and he took me off the Zoloft and put me on Ritalin to treat my ADHD. The first day after starting Ritalin, I did twenty-seven division problems in under five minutes and missed only three of them. That was the first time in life that I did any such assignment that quickly and got that good of a grade. The dreadful Zoloft days were over at last.

By October 2003, I was switched from Ritalin to Adderall. I was warned of the side effects by my PE teacher as they could interfere with my ability to perform in PE. However, I had no such side effects, and it worked just as well as the Ritalin. However, during the summer of 2005, I vomited my breakfast, including my Adderall all over one of my favorite car magazines, resulting in a permanent blue stain on a picture of a Cadillac STS. My mother deemed it unsafe to give me another Adderall, so I suffered from withdrawal symptoms, most notably irratibility. That was the only time I had to withdraw from Adderall for many years.

Adderall didn't cause me any serious issues until the time I started college in a high school program. I was under a lot of stress that year from sudden cuts to public transportation, and increased social difficulties that caused my social network I formed to completely collapse, and I lost all but two friends that I had made during that school year. I know I'm getting a little sidetracked, but the stress I was under at the time might have had some role with the serious issues I would get later from Adderall. By late 2010, I was starting to experience other side effects, most notably a very high level of anxiety, especially social anxiety, which led to quite a few panic attacks, particularly when using public transportation and an irrational fear that if I stood under a fire alarm, it would go off. By 2011, it got a whole lot worse, particularly the week following a SkillsUSA competition. I could barely walk with my backpack on, which was only half-full and I was forced to use EVERY drinking fountain as a pit stop. I had a very big memory lapse during class which frustrated both myself and my instructor to no end. At the end of the week, I went to the doctor for the usual med-check. They needed some bloodwork and they found out that I was dehydrated. I made sure that I drank plenty of water before I left home after that. However, the anxiety and panic attacks didn't stop. By the summer of that year, I guessed that I had developed Social Anxiety disorder. I eventually realized that it wasn't an anxiety disorder at all, but vitamin B complex deficiency, after I started developing a high level of sensitivity to sunlight, most notably my eyes watering up when waiting for the bus. Taking a vitamin B complex supplement with ALL eight B vitamins is necessary to prevent the deficiency. It doesn't help that Medicaid now only covers Adderall for ADHD, at least in the state of Colorado. Adderall works fine for me these days as long as I take a vitamin B complex supplement with it.

I have no strange reactions to most antibiotics, and I did have to go on antibiotics when I caught the flu twice in early 2003, making me miss four weeks of school. I had to make up the dreaded state assessment program tests (CSAP's), but my aide provided certain accommodations.

And last, but not least, some allergy medications, such as Benadryl, make me drowsy to the point that I have an extremely tough time staying awake while riding the bus. The last time I took Benadryl, I had several microsleep sessions while riding the bus to the local community college for my first day of school on the college side. The microsleep sessions were about a half-second each, but noticeable as my hearing cut off and my vision lost focus each time.

what is medication?

Yup. I have bad reactions to meds. Usually nausea, if not, I'll be allergic to them.

It means the doctor has to go through a list of things each time, just to make sure I'm not going to end up in hospital or something. I'm on injectable chemo drugs for rheumatoid arthritis because they aren't supposed to make you sick. Plus two anti sickness drugs. Guess what I still end up doing 24 hours after injecting? That's right, puking for days.


I hate meds. The only things I've ever got on well with were amphetamines (yes, illegally, I decided it wasn't worth the risk, I felt happy and peaceful on them), ketamine (used as anaesthesia because I was allergic to the one they had in stock) and benzodiazepines when I was prescribed them for not sleeping for five days with a neck injury. But they wouldn't give out more than seven of those.

Hmmm, you mean like peeing hemoglobin when tried on a new mood stabilizer? As in, liver malfunctioning to the point of shunting its filtering role to the kidneys? And the acute pancreatitis I had a year ago after a course of acyclovir for a shingles outbreak? That one had me in the hospital for 3 days. Good times, good time. Doctors of course think I'm exaggerating, malingering or hypochondriatizing - until I pee hemoglobin and/or end up in the hospital. Nah, I'm sure I imagine it all.

I try to avoid medications as I have reactions to many.

Several antibiotics make me very sick. The GP said it's not an allergy it's a side-effect, but being unable to keep down any water or food is to me more trouble than the supposed benefit.
Aspirin is horrible- headache, stomach pains, nausea. Can't use topical creams with aspirin like anti-inflamatories in.
Anaesthetic for dentistry takes two days to get over and general anaesthetic about a week.
Allergies to tiger balm, Myrrh, and a lot of perfumes on skin contact.
Took Prozac for three days and thought the wallpaper was looking at me funny. Horrible, as I hadn't been warned about possible side-effects.

Caffeine makes me twitchy in even small quantities, I avoid it.

Sedatives don't work for me. I might have grown immune to them from taking anti-histamines often. Caffeine has adverse effects on me but I heard it does that for people who don't drink coffee often.

I am not one for medications unless absolutely necessary. I put 25% as in my 3 decades i've been through a lot of different meds, most of which i didn't take long.
However a few did give me bad/ odd reactions.
Risperdal gave me an irregular heartbeat
When i was a child they had me on some type of codiene cough suppressant that wasn't supposed to be used on children under 7, i was 3 or 4 years and it actually made me hallucinate. There was 2 medicines that were on the market then that was on my bad list, Hycodan and also Phenigan (not sure of sp? its likely off market now) Phenigan made me violently sick.

Also Bactrim, an antibiotic damn near killed me. The hospital prescribed it and double the normal dose evidently. I was spitting up blood and it had messed up my throat for a spell.

Seroquel caused an adverse reaction and actually made me angry when it wasn't knocking me out.

Anyhow the majority of psych meds for depression/bi-polar don't work for me.

I have taken few meds in my life. I have bad reaction to vancomycin, and Tylenol is like morphine for me. No other effects from other meds.

Even the antibiotics I'm not allergic to tend to make me feel worse than what they're supposed to cure. As for others...I tend to be immune or nearly so to painkillers (including novacaine, makes dentist visits torture because they NEVER believe me), and coffee has random effects - about a one third chance each that it'll work as it's supposed to, knock me out, or do nothing at all. The only thing I've found that consistently gives me energy is Nos, it gives me a larger pool of energy to work with and generally has the rather nice side-effect of sending the creative part of my brain into hyperdrive.

i take clonidine and mirtazpine and i get no side effects

I hate taking medicine! I took children's Tylenol for years past age 11 because swallowing pills was too traumatic. It frightens me, too - I read the entire package twice before I dare let anything cross my lips. I don't get side effects but I do feel nauseous sometimes after.

One common thing that happens to me is if I need an antibiotic, I need something to treat yeast infections. I've mentioned before that the only time I was ever suicidal was when I was taking Paxil. Once I got another doctor to wean me off it, I was fine, and I haven't had any serious depression in 10 years now.

I am not sure. Probably at least 50% and nearly always with antidepressants at what are considered typical doses. Adderall caused severe tmj pain at a very low dose. I am at the point where I will not take an anti-depressant at a typical dose. Zoloft has been great for my anxiety at a low dose, but I think it also makes me a bit more blunt than is typical for me.