So, apparently, not only is there a possible genetic tendency towards adverse reactions to antipsychotics I just discovered, but there is also no reason I ever should have been put on Abilify and it is actively dangerous. Apparently most of the medications I'm on have significant interactions with it that can increase adverse symptoms, and it is literally dangerous considering my heart conditions, conduction abnormalities, hypotension issues, balance and mobility issues, and difficulty swallowing. And that it also has potential and esceptionally severe interactions with some of my mental illnesses. And that while yes, abilify can still be given considering all of this if it's seen as necessary and proper safety measures are taken, but I literally do not need it for any of the conditions it is for. It was prescribed purely as a sedative. Just because it would make me sleep.
As if there are not one million other sedatives she could have tried first that weren't an antipsychotic that has a high potential of being medically dangerous to me.
I guess thank the gods I was only one one miligram, because if shit was this bad on such a low doze than gods know what would've happened at a higher dose.
Now I know the state of psychiatry is pretty dire and that interactions and side effects are one thousand spins of a wheel, but I do not understand how this got prescribed to me.
No more abilify for me and next time I get prescibed something new, I'm looking up all possible interactions so I know ahead of time. Because honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if I got prescribed something only to find that said medication is invariably lethal to someone prone to cardiac arrhythmia. Nothing would shock me at this point. Bloody hell
Just reading your novel and wanted to make some sketches. Sorry if they look a bit clumsy or if I didn't imagine everything properly—I'm not good enough in English. Still, I wanted to set down how I saw it. Thank you for your work; it makes my days better :)
AAAAAA!! This is literally so kind, I LOVE the mood of it. I’m so touched that you enjoyed my work, this is honestly like the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. I hope you enjoy it all 😇 😇
As the day stretched on into evening with no word from his brother, each hour that passed by deepening the well of dread that began to form, it became more and more clear that something was very, very wrong.
Whumptober day 1: Adverse Effects, "This wasn't supposed to happen"
anyway. fulcrum au,,, as stated before, Emmet doesn't realize Ingo was even missing at first since he had been Out And About and emmet himself was a bit. preoccupied, with the situation. but when he DOES. he feels... really bad about not realizing it.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc might be wrong most of the time, but ...
A couple of days ago, for my birthday, I documented my fourth adverse reaction to a popularly-prescribed medication. None of which my doctor had even heard were possible, none of which I was warned about by my pharmacist.
Four times now, I've developed "a whole new disease" 6 to 18 months after starting a new medication. Four times I eventually thought to google my most recent medication and my current symptoms, and found that it was possible that I could be experiencing a (supposedly) "one per thousand" or even "one per ten thousand" person adverse reaction. Four times I asked my doctor to substitute a different medication, and lo and behold, the problem went away. Four fucking times.
And three of those four times, before I did so, I brought up the new problem as part of a physical, in front of a physician who had my whole chart in front of her, then she prescribed a new medication to treat my new symptoms, and I filled that prescription at a pharmacy where the pharmacist was looking right at a screen listing every medication I was taking. They both have degrees in this shit. Why was I the one who had to figure this out?
And also, bullshit that these adverse reactions are that rare. No way in hell I "won" a 1:1000 or 1:10000 lottery four times. And I know why, too: because I'm old, and I'm fat, and that meant that my doctor and my pharmacist "knew" what was causing my "new disease," either my age or my weight.
Skin dying and sloughing off around a recent incision? Yeah, that happens to old people and to fat people, they don't always heal well, just keep applying your antibiotic until it does. (Neomycin allergy: tissue necrosis.)
Mental fog and increasing dementia? Yeah, that happens to old people, nothing can be done. (Wellbutrin: mental fog. Lisinopril: mental fog.)
High blood sugar? Yeah, that happens to fat people, lose weight. (Thiazide diuretic: high blood sugar.)
And all four times, insisting on switching to a different medication solved the problem.
Oh, and that doesn't even count the fact that I was misdiagnosed with "drug seeking behavior" for telling my surgeons that the opiates were having no effect, despite the highly visible clue of my bright-red beard: I inherited the genes that make me totally opiate non-responsive. Count that as a fifth adverse drug reaction, if you like.
(Never mind that I wasn't asking for higher doses, I was telling them to stop prescribing opiates; that was "a clever ruse." And, oh, yeah, one clever nurse practitioner had heard of my condition and recommended I bully the doctor into prescribing Tramadol instead, which doesn't work perfectly, but provides some relief if I don't overuse it.)
So do not believe that an adverse reaction is as rare as the company says it is if and only if it's an adverse reaction that medical professionals are eager to explain away as having nothing to do with the medication, one they're eager to jump to conclusions and blame on age or weight or sex. Because in those cases, you're not measuring the adverse reactions, you're measuring the number of people with those reactions who fought to get them counted.
You have to have noticed by now that we tell people (or at least the white college-educated people) that they have to be "their own health advocates," but how in the hell is that supposed to even work, when we're not the ones with degrees in medicine and years' worth of experience with these conditions?
So, please pass this advice along to anybody who's on any medication for a chronic condition, anything they're going to have to take for years or forever to manage the symptoms of some supposedly incurable condition:
Any time you develop new symptoms, google-search each medication that you are taking, one at a time, followed by the symptom you've just recently developed. If you find any matches, no matter how rare it says they are, ask the doctor who prescribed that earlier medicine to suggest an alternative and try that before you let them add another medication.
Because otherwise you could end up one pill that treats your symptoms, but creates a new illness, so they give you another pill to treat that illness, and it causes a third illness, until you end up on so many pills that you're a walking biochemical disaster site. In fact, any time you meet someone (or if you are someone) who's taking, say, four or more separate medications for symptomatic relief, swap out the oldest medications for alternatives, the ones they've been taking the longest, until you rule out iatrogenic illness. Do not, not, not let them add a fifth, a sixth, whatever medication until you have ruled out adverse reactions. Your very life may depend on it!
And for whatever god damned reason, I wish I knew why, neither your doctor nor your pharmacist will think to recommend this if you don't.
The Time Traveler’s Wife s01e06: The day before his wedding, Henry meets up with a drug dealer and takes a drug cocktail that would stop time travel for at least nine hours. It backfires, his time-traveling incident increases significantly due to the adverse effect of the drug. Gomez then calls Henry’s dad to help calm Henry down, he ends up disappearing again.
The next time Civilian woke up they were screaming. Something was crawling up the inside of their arm, a razorblade making its way through their veins. Their other hand flew up, blindly clawing at the pain. Somehow, their fingers caught around something round and flexible. They grabbed onto it tight and pulled.
“Civilian, stop!”
A voice, rapid footsteps, and then a weight on the bed next to them. Gloved hands wrapping around their own and lifting them away. A frustrated, agonized growl crawled out of Civilians's throat. The fire was all around them now, burning and itching under their skin. Their eyes were closed tight against the overwhelming onslaught, hot tears leaking out.
“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” The voice sounded frantic, somewhat breathless. Familiar. “Can you look at me, Civilian? Where are you right now?”
Their head spun. How were they meant to answer that many questions? They couldn't even remember the questions they'd been asked. The only thing they could think of was—
“Hhnn, h-hurts,” they managed, throat burning with the effort it took to breathe.
A slight tightening of the grip on their wrists. Their breath shuttered, choppy. In, out, in, in in inin…They were being bad, weren’t they? When it hurt, it was a punishment. That meant they weren’t supposed to make it stop. They weren’t supposed to be struggling. They hadn’t even apologized, never mind that they couldn’t remember what they had even done wrong. They slowly forced themself to fall limp.
The person—Hero, they were sure, seemed to sense the shift in them.
“Civilian…?” They sounded hesitant now.
They gasped, choking on air slightly. More tears wound their way down their face, cooling on their jaw, their throat. “H-Hero.” Their voice was a pathetic whine, but they couldn’t help it, and they no longer knew what shame felt like.
Hero stiffened.
Oh. They weren’t supposed to call him by his name right now, was that it? If they’d just been punished, they should be groveling. Before they could make their voice work again, though, Hero started talking again.
“No, Civilian, Hero isn’t here. They’re not going to hurt you again, do you understand?” A long pause, during which Civilian stayed quiet because no, they didn’t understand. And everything still hurt like the worst of Hero’s serums. “Can you please open your eyes?”
That caught Civilian’s attention. It would be a cold day in hell before Hero said please to them. And so they forced their eyes to open, to blink away the stark white that covered their vision at first. Finally, their eyes focused on the face above them, and it wasn’t Hero at all.
Civilian’s brow furrowed deeper. Another whine slipped from their throat.
Villain—why was it Villain? Why were they here?—glanced down at Civilian's twitching hands and said, “If I let go of you, can I trust you not to hurt yourself?”
Civilian hesitated, then shook their head. They would start clawing at the source of the pain again, they couldn't help it. It was a burning need, to get this torture out of them, to make it all stop. Their skin stabbed and prickled, and they shifted restlessly as though it was on the bed they laid on rather than inside of them. Now they could see an IV pumping fluid into their arm right where the agony had started.
Villain muttered a curse. “Okay. I’m going to tie your right arm to the headboard. Just with a blanket. Nothing that’s going to harm you. Then I’m going to check on your injuries. Do I need to up the painkiller?”
Civilian must have looked confused, because Villain gestured towards the IV.
Oh. The “painkiller”.
They shook their head, biting their lip against another sob.
Villain huffed out an annoyed little sigh as they knotted the blanket around Civilian’s arm. “Could you tell me where it hurts so I know where to look?”
“E-ev, nnh, everywhere,” Civilian gasped out, tossing their head back against the pillow. They briefly wondered if they could hit their head against the headboard hard enough to knock them out. “Plea, pl-please make it s-stop-op,” they all but wailed.
Villain looked almost taken aback, but the gears were turning behind their harsh eyes. “The painkiller?”
They reached towards it, and Civilian nearly shrieked. “Hurts, ple-ease!”
If they hadn’t wrenched their eyes shut just then, they would have seen Villain’s widen in realization. Then horror. Then, as they sprung into action, guilt.
Moments later, both of Civilian’s arms were freed, and the all-consuming pain didn’t lessen, but it stopped building. They shuddered in relief, tears falling even more freely now. Villain just stood back and watched them, eventually moving to get a cloth and wipe Civilian’s face clean, silent as the grave. They were probably planning the ways Civilian would have to make up for this. The punishments for taking advantage of their kindness, for not taking a lesson as it was meant to be.
When Civilian had recovered themself enough, they sniffled out a small, “thank you.”
Villain jolted and quickly resumed their soothing motions. “I’m sorry,” they said softly, in that firm and almost dangerous way of theirs. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Civilian's forehead tightened again. “Hn?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you. The IV was administering you painkillers, but I’m guessing they didn’t react well with your powers. I’m sorry.” And Civilian almost found a part of themself offended that Villain sounded so damn tired.
But that part of themself wasn't the part in charge of their mouth, so instead they ended up saying, “I was bad…?”
“No.” Villain balled the cloth up in their fist, fury rising into their voice now. “You are not bad, and you do not deserve to be hurt.”
Another tear slipped down their cheek.
“Civilian. Do you remember what happened before now?”
They thought very hard, and nodded.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened? Start from the beginning. Then we can figure out what we need to talk about, because I get the feeling there’s going to be a lot.”
—
taglist: @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @twistedcaretaker @lonesome--hunter @poppys-writing @endless-whump @multifandoms-multishipper @shadowylemon @utopian819 @whumpkitty @journey-the-panda @freefallingup13 @prettyboysinpain @1becky1 @chartreusephoenix @thelazywitchphotographer @onestopheroxvillain @smolxhero @mylifeisonthebookshelf @broadwaybabe18 @grizzlie70 @sunflower1000 @tobeornottobeateacher @wolfeyedwitch @canigetanamenforbritney @ladygwennn @onlywhump @suspicious-whumping-egg @lemongrass404 @alainayumira @icarusinstatic @will-ruadh @pumpkin-spice-whump @michelleswhumpyreblogs @cyberneticfire @tinyreadinglifelight @savagelysarcasticsilence @void-fireworks @dead-whispers @strawberryglitterball @writing-with-olive @rose-pinkie @didieatyourdog @bliss757 @nomadghost @cake-lovin-ace @viitalvoiid @hurting-fictional-people @melancholy-in-the-morning @lailan-rosie @deflated-bouncingball [the taglist is just one person too long so I will be tagging one (1) singular person in the replies]
