Medication reactions

@audreyh Wow! You’ve a very difficult time! Have you had any lasting effects of the medications? Your doctor must have been very nervous even trying a new medication! Did you talk with a pharmacist?to answer your question about knowing someone with a similar reaction—I had a bad reaction to rituxan the first time I got it infused. I was in the doctor’s infusion center so there were lots of nurses around. I felt like I had a band moving up my body. It was squeezing tighter as it moved up. The nurses noticed something wrong also so they started their emergency protocal immediately. Once I was stable, an ambulance was called to take me to the ER. (Across the parking lot!). I was checked out by the ER doctor and my husband came to drive me home. It was a scary episode but now rituxan is my favorite drug ! Your reaction is scarier! I’m sure that other members will have their stories,too

Hi,
Medication can effect some of us in these ways. No one seems to know why but it is understood it can happen.
I react to most of the prescription meds I'm given. It can range from knowing something is not right with me on meds to being totally out of control and aggressive. Some medication has worked in the reverse way that they are developed to work for me. While we are all human we are not all of the same composition.
I have to take my wife with me on Dr visits so they can understand it is just not my word but her opinion also explaining the dramatic effect she witnesses me go through with various medications for different health issues I have to put up with.
The trouble with medication is it is developed to work with "normal"people not those of us on the fringe or further away from the "normal" side of life.
Cheers

I am also sensitive to many medications. From little things like rashes (sulfa drugs) to feeling like my head will blow up (metronidazole, codeine, opioids at normal strengths). My weirdest reaction was just this week with nitroflurantoin. I lost my ability to see yellow for a short time. The drug made me really exhausted to the point that I would fall asleep any time that I sat for more than 5 minutes. I had brain fog to the point where it made sense that I must have just misremembered that my bright orange iPad case was actually bright pink. Not long afterward, it went back to orange. I looked up the side effects of the drug to see if I should stop taking it (Doctor said yes, of course!) and found out about the exhaustion, little red dots on arms, and this blue/yellow colorblindness. Really freaky. If I wasn’t sick in the first place, I would have been more insistent on using a broad spectrum antibiotic that I know I can tolerate like doxycycline. I don’t know if I am getting more sensitive as I age, or whether my body just does not tolerate the assault of any more chemicals. Best wishes to finding drugs that are well tolerated for you. Everyone is different.

@cheyne
You need skin testing for many things but most of all. Milk and Eggs.
I wish I had all the money back I spent on meds.
Claritin is an allergy med
I was told recently to take it, but I said no
20 years ago, I reacted, Called the company, Talk to Mayo Pharmacist as well as Hy-Vee.
Everything on the label looked good, but I said it made me sick
Call the company and the base medication is safe, but the process of making it into a pill they Add lactose Or milk.
So please check into it. It also could be Aluminum dies.
I wish you the very best

@minnesota10
Hi,
I've been checked for everything imaginable and all I have to show for it is Diabetes T2, CKD, Sky high BP, high cholesterol levels, I have an enlarged heart and Autonomic polyneuropathy. There is a family trait of reacting to medication, inherited from my father, unfortunately I'm the worst. There also seems to be something genetic in us as two have succombed to MS, one has Hushimotos, My Dysautomonia and now the last of my siblings is following down my track, all part of Dysautomonia . We all react strangely to medications, reactions tha are not know for a particular medication.
I'm fortunate that I don't have to pay for medication and generally don't pay for medical services. I just pay for my Dr visits at a reduced rate. I'm currently to the point of evaluating what I will do going forward. Every which way we have turned has failed and because of it I'm labelled as psychologially challenged. I have to strongly disagree with such utterings which stem because frankly I freely say death would be a relief. I'm not depressed or suicidal but I am fed up with the theory because they can't find anything to attribute to my "condition" it's in the mind.
The likely hood is I will continue to be untreated and medication free for the remainder of my life. At least I don't have to remember to take my meds! I know and accept the consequences of doing so but at least I can enjoy a modicum of comfort while I'm still here. Today my BP is 173/101, my new norm, with a heart beat of 60, Glucoes level is 16.2 well into hyperglysemic and only slightly elevated for me, normally in the 13/14 range after fasting over night. The upside is I can walk , of a fashion, talk and cause trouble, what more could I want. Treatment, not at the cost of my comfort thanks. I can't put those around me through the side effects I struggle with while medicated.
Cheers

I have numerous autoimmune diseases and am allergic to all pain medication, antibiotics and sulfonamides.