medication plus and minus

[jinian]

One of the people I know from school has just been diagnosed with arthritis, and she pointed out that she's now taking an antimalarial drug (since that's another thing her arthritis-suppression pills are used for), so she can go wherever she wants. Yeah. I would still rather not have to take pills every day, but they do give extra stuff.

Nortriptyline: a migraine suppressor that works pretty well for me. Also an antidepressant, though I don't notice it, and helps me sleep.

Fexofenadine: an antihistamine that reins in my pollen allergies somewhat. When I am bitten by mosquitoes, I don't get much itch or swelling.

Nuva Ring: useful reducer of hideous menstrual cramps. Additionally, it acts as birth control and allows me to slightly retime periods -- waiting to start headache-and-cramp-danger time until after finals was really good. (Seems to make PMS worse and longer, though, need to work on that in other ways.)

What side effects have you noticed from your meds? Anonymous commenting is, as always, allowed.

Comments

[submarine-bells.livejournal.com]

Dexedrine - in the past I noticed that I needed less sleep to function well when I'm on dex. Sadly it doesn't seem to work that way for me any more. Other odd-but-interesting side effects include being better able to deal with pain/illness/discomfort - part of the attention-control thing, I guess, is being able to shrug such stuff off, at least to some degree.

Panadeine forte (painkiller with extra-chunky codeine) - it's helpfully soporific, in that if I'm not sleeping well due to pain it reduces the pain and makes it easier for me to fall asleep. Which is less useful when I'm not in the process of going to bed, but c'est la vie.

Sandomigran (migraine preventative)- I've noticed the "increased appetite" side effect even on the low dose I'm on. I'm not hungrier as such; it's more that I'm now rather prone to getting "the munchies" when I'm not hungry, if that makes sense. I imagine some of the last year or two's weight gain is due to that. Also I'm needing more sleep than I used to, even before I started on the dexedrine. Before dex I regularly needed 9 hours a night; after I started with the dex I was happy with 7 or so hours (that was lovely! I got heaps more stuff done, just due to having a couple of extra hours in each day); now I'm on low-dose dex + sandomigran, I find I'm regularly sleeping for 10 (!!!) hours a day, which is a pain. And I'm waking up at 9am, which was previously unheard-of for me - I used to be up with the dawn. It's a major pain in the ass, but it's still heaps better than spending a quarter to a third of my time with migraines of one sort or another. Oh, I did notice after I'd been on Sandomigran for a while that my moods were a bit more generally stable. (That might have possibly been related to not being migrainey for much of the time, tho' I think not). That was a pleasing and unexpected side-effect.

Various anti-inflammatories - many of the stronger ones I have tried have caused me stomach pain, as well as providing varying levels of pain relief. I hope the current one doesn't start doing that, because surely I'll eventually run out of anti-inflammatories to try.

[submarine-bells.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, another good side-effect of dex - I don't get "night terrors" (aka "hypnagogic experiences" or "sleep paralysis" anywhere near as frequently as I used to. I don't miss that at all!

[sebboi.livejournal.com]

I am a freak.

I take no meds.

My enire family espouses the 'Better living through chemistry' lifestyle, save myself.

Nothing wrong with it, in the slightest... I just always feel kinda... 'left out' when people compare their long lists of medical side effects.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

one of my current meds is also a cancer drug. i am not hoping to get cancer to test this, mind you.

oh! also, really weird dreams because of it.

[wiredferret.livejournal.com]

The hormones in my IUD not only keep me from getting pregnant, but effectively shut off my periods entirely. BONUS!