Allergic Reaction...A must read for everyone IMO
 

This is a must read....even if you're a guy, you should read this in case you ever know a female that has the problem we have figured out I have been having...

thanks in advance for reading...its long...but it could help someone not to go thru what I have been going thru for the last 3 months



Ok...so alot of you know the on going battle I have had since the first of june what I thought were mosquito bites. What made me think this? Well...we found out our basement had been flooding every time it rained...the mosquito population down there would have rivaled the swamps in south georgia, so naturally they made their way upstairs. On June 6th I woke up with my face so swollen I couldn't really see well...and well I wont repeat previous blogs, suffice it to say that has happened to me several times, along with huge welts all over the rest of me that just showed up at various times of the day and night. (Please keep in mind, I'm EXTREMELY allergic to biting/stinging insects and react awfully to mosquitoes, but not SO bad that I have to use my epi pen...thats reserved for bees/wasps/fire ants).

I was going to bed every nite praying I wouldn't wake up with a swollen face again, it happened several times, but only twice on a work nite where I had to call in sick, the other times it was on a weekend. We spent god knows how much money on foggers for the house, bug spray for me, so much benadryl (both pills and cream) that I should have stock in the company...not to mention the missed time from work because I cant function on benadryl and sometimes had to take it during the day. There hasnt been a day since June the 6th that I haven't had at least 3 of them a day, I've been sleeping in smelly citronella bracelets (poor Dave), spraying myself with bugs pray when I walk in the door from work. My short term memory is so shot I will be surprised if part of this isnt repeated because I've forgotten that I've already typed something. Seriously...Dave and I and Amanda drove from Chatsworth GA to Waynesville NC Sunday...and on the way back I had NO memory of driving on a road I had been on 5 hours previously. I have quite honestly felt like I was slowly losing my mind for 3 months. Irritable? You'd have thought I was preggie I was so unpredictable with my moods. Most of the time the welts started showing up when I'd been at home for a little while after work in the afternoons, and on weekends I'd get them first thing in the morning and then again at nite....sounds just like mosquito peak times right? Once or twice it happened at work, but since I go outside to smoke...I thought it was mosquitoes. We couldn't see anything biting me, Dave wasn't getting bit..but we got an electronic mosquito trap for the house and the catch container was full of them every time I'd empty it.....so logic says....Shannon your problem IS mosquitoes....Part of me was really dreading spending this past weekend in the woods

Well guess what?

Its not mosquitoes

Friday when we were leaving to go to the mountains and was packing Amanda's stuff in the car I got bitten several times on legs...this time I KNOW it was mosquitoes because I saw them and smushed them. The reaction was awful....way worse than what I'd been having....the welts were bigger and redder and covered a bigger area...I'm thinking oh great......these are killer mosquitoes or something. Ok....no other thoughts about it. We get up to the cabin in the mountains, and anytime I'm outside I'm wearing my citronella bracelets, covered in bugspray from head to toe and just waiting for the assault to begin.....Friday nite I didn't get welty, so I'm thinking...cool this new bug spray a friend recommended actually works!!!!

Saturday morning, we get up....we have a morning of horseback riding planned. While I'm fixing breakfast my face starts to swell...at this point I'm devastated because I know Im going to have to take benadryl (plus I look pretty silly). I take one, hoping that will get me thru the horseback ride so that Amanda isn't disappointed, but I know when its over Im going to have to take another one which will make me comatose for hours, which means I'm going to have to miss the live snake demonstration we were going to. Dave takes Amanda to that (they promised her the nite before at the community park marshmallow roast she could hold some snakes) while I sleep. After dinner that nite, I spray myself down and put on my bracelets and we go hiking and I come back with not one bite...so I'm thinking, I just need to put the bug spray one as soon as I get out of the bed lol.

Sunday...no issues....we decide to drive 3 hours to the Inman Family reunion (most of you know that my family is THE Inman family from the movie Cold Mountain), and had a good time there. Course by the time we drive 3 hours back I'm exhausted so we went to bed about 10 that nite. 4 am I wake up....this time my face is swollen but its started at the bottom of my cheek and gone down....my throat is swollen and I cant swallow. I get up in a panic...where is my epi pen? What the hell bit me thats caused my throat to close? I calm down enough to notice I can breathe with no problems, I just can't swallow (kinda like having a severe case of strep throat or something). Dave wakes up and we are talking......

Out of the blue it hits me, and I don't know why or where the thought came from....but I'm wondering if my birth control pills are causing me hives. Why do I think its the BC pills? My insurance company stopped covering the ones I was taking in May. The Dr prescribed me new ones the end of the month and it hit me that the first time my face swelled was 2 days after I'd taken the new ones. On the way home (once we cleared a mtn and my cell phone worked) I called my mom and asked her to google Orth TriCyclene and find out if hives are a side affect. Didn't take 30 seconds to find out that one of the severe (telling you to get emergency treatment immediately) side affects of OTC is Hives, mainly in the face, hands and feet. Which is where MOST of my problems have been....I had gotten welts in other places, but I would say 75% of the time it was Face, hands and feet. Mother said page upon page pretty much said this

An allergic reaction will present with symptoms that include facial swelling, including swelling of the lips, mouth, tongue, or throat, hives, and difficulty breathing. Other serious side effects include symptoms such as sudden numbness or weakness that dominates one side of the body, chest pain or heaviness that involves the arm, sudden headache with pain behind the eyes, blurry vision, difficulty with speech, loss of balance or coordination, changes in the pattern or severity of migraines, nausea, stomach pain, dark urine, clay colored stools, jaundice, loss of appetite, swelling of the hands, ankles, and feet, breast lump, or depression.

I had had every single one of these.....the hives being the worse.

I have been, in my opinion, in a complete living hell for 3 months because of what I thought was bug bites. It never once occurred to me it was the BC pills....I had thought a few times...hmmm maybe I'm having a problem with something I'm eating...but nothing in my diet had changed so I dismissed it as being hives.

Thankfully I took my last pill on Saturday and that bitch back up dr I went to see earlier this month that was covering for my Dr wouldn't write me a new script (Im sure a lot of people remember my vent about her and the fact that she wouldn't give me the new script when I had my yearly exam). I must say I thank God for her not doing it....but not the way she did it lol.

I guess time will tell me definitely if its the pills now that I'm off of them. Most of the hive stories I've read online said they went away after being off of them anywhere from a week to two weeks, but I'm positive, because of the other problems I've been having that I attributed to being drugged with antihistamines so much, that the entire thing has been due to the BC pills.

Part of me feels better knowing there is light at the end of the tunnel....part of me is pissed at myself for being so stupid that it never occurred to me that...yes I was having an allergic reaction...but not to bugs.

I hope you girls that read this will keep this in the back of your mind if you or anyone you know ever has a problem remotely close to this.

Pray for me that this is over....and that shortly I will be myself and sane again

Holy crap. I hope you get back to 100% soon.

Holy crap, indeed.

Glad to hear you're getting it sorted out, Shani. Get well, yes? :thumbsup:

woo hoo! not that your problem is anything to cheer about, but I'm damned glad to hear that I'm not the only one with an allergic reaction to BC pills.

the very first time I went on "the pill" i was rushed to the hospital within 24 hrs of taking the first one because my blood pressure went sky high and i passed out and nearly had a stroke. I could have switched scripts, but I chose to just NOT be on the pill (young at the time and not married - sex wasn't any sort of desirable "requirement" so to speak)

I've got allergies to some pretty wacky stuff, but it never occurred to me that BC pills would be one of them. Best wishes to you!

Spermacide, condoms, and careful.

Holy crap on a stick. Thank goodness you thought of it!! Hopefully you'll return to normal quickly - when I'm having bad reactions to BC, it seems like not taking them is like flipping a switch. I hope it's the same for you!

Triple holy crap, Get Better Soon Shani!! :) Or else! :orly:

Jeez, Shani... I'm glad you figured it out, but I'm sorry you had to go through hell and back before you did.

That's the thing with lives as complex as ours these days--who can say what input into the system resulted in what particular output? House wraps it up in an hour... sometimes it can take weeks, in the real world. And even House has to get it wrong twice per episode before he figures it out! ;)

yeah but if House diagnosed me with hemochromatosis he'd be right hehehehee

it just wouldnt have been the cause of THIS problem

thanks guys....I honestly wasnt looking for sympathy....I was totally in a "damn I need to let people know" mode, but I went about it the long winded way (I guess to keep justifying to myself why I shouldnt feel completely stupid for not recognizing these symptoms started with a new med)

Dave and I have decided not to try a new pill (Im have finally decided to get my tubes tied the first of next year and not try an IUD). Maybe after all these years I dont need them for the cyst problem....I wont know unless I try and I'd love to lose this weight and get my sex drive back hehehe

Our best to you shannon, and we hope all is back to normal soon. And no, you are not stupid. Self diagnosis takes time, but in the end it is rewarding in a way.
Grancey & Red

Definitely what Grancey said.

By the way, I read your blog on MySpace yesterday without seeing this thread and I tried to tell Grancey about your side effects as soon as I got home, but I couldn't. That's because she was interrupting me trying to tell me about this thread on TFP.

You are loved and cared for.

thanks you two :icare:

Its amazing how many people on myspace are reposting my blog as a bulletin or have contacted me to tell me the same thing was happening to them and they had no idea why

this stuff is poison!!!

Wow, just wow.

I am glad you figured out what was causing all of these problems for you.

I hope you are healthy and well soon, and that this is the end of your health woes. You are in my thoughts. Take care of yourself, you hear?

would like to hear the icing on the cake?

I just called the insurance company to find out if there was ANYTHING my doctor could do to get them to cover my original pills for me again.

The lady puts me on hold and comes back and tells me I should never have gotten that letter.....they never discontinued coverage of my medication.

Not only did I get the letter, but when I called when I got it and asked them that since they had stopped covering my pills, what WOULD they cover..they didnt tell me it was a MISTAKE. I am STILL going thru hell, I am STILL having the hives...hell I had to call in sick to work yesterday because of them

Im so upset

You want me to beat them up for you? I will.

I will make a cake for the street people if you do :icare:

WTF??? I don't even know what to say. This kind of stuff just blows my mind!

If you haven't been on the pill for 3 weeks and still are having severe symptoms like that, it just might not be the pill.

I am not familiar with BC allergies so maybe it takes a full cycle to get out of it, but that doesn't sound right to me.

No, the doctor told me it could be a few weeks, it could be several months, it depended on my body and what letting it go on for 3 months has done to me. If I had stopped taking the pills as soon as the hives started they would have prob gone away immediately.

Now I just have to see what kind of damage I have done to myself by not realizing it was the pills

You are most likely right but still, keep thinking about changes in lifestyle, clothes, diet, laundry detergent just in case.

Thanks, I've been thinking about all that stuff "just in case" and I just cant come up with anything thats changed. I know my food hasnt because I have to keep journals on that because of my migraines. I know my laundry detergent hasnt because Im allergic to a few so I stick with the one I KNOW Im not allergic too. I never have money for new clothes, I've bought one new shirt and pair of jeans in the last 4 months, and that was two weeks ago, so Im still wearing all my regular stuff

What you have gone through doesn't sound good. I never knew that could happen.

Were you ever on any other birth control besides this one and the previous one?

yes, I was on triphasial (sp?) from the age of 18-24, I went off that to become preggie and after I had my daughter at 25 I didnt go back on anything and 6 years after she was born (when I was 31) they discovered I'd stopped producing progesterone and put me on the Estrostep because I was having a horrible time with cysts in my uterus and it was either try that and if it didnt work I'd have to have a full hysterectomy....they worked and I've been on them ever since, well until may anyway.

Now Im not on anything at all, Im waiting on my Dr to call me back to tell me if she's going to call my old pills in or not or if she wants to see if I've started reproducing progesterone on my own

Dave and I finally decided when I can keep him in the country long enough he's going to get snipped. With the two surgeries and the health probs I've had in the last year I just cant (mentally) have another one.

I had a pretty bad reaction to medication last year.

About two years ago, I asked my doctor to switch my blood pressure medicine to a generic because of cost. One of the listed side effects was an increased respiratory infection risk, but I've never had side effect problems, so I didn't think anything of it. I started taking it on Thursday, and by Saturday I had a dry cough. By Sunday I felt like crap and left work early. I called my doctor on Monday and he asked if I wanted a prescription for antibiotics; I declined because I thought it might be viral.

Apparently, I should have listened to my doctor. By Tuesday I was in the ER with severe dehydration and a fever over 106°. It took me a few months to fully recover from lobar pneumonia.

I'm sorry to hear that you've been unwell babe. :-(

I missed this post originally - we were on holiday.

I have to say the ore I hear about stories like yours the more I'm glad that I live in a country with socialised medicine.

Hope you're better soon. I know your allergic to latex, but there are some great non-latex condoms out there (including ours).

Read this thread and know that you're not alone:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=51773

Happened a long time ago but it was the worst 5 months of my life.