Meds Alert
Why am I using strawberries for the illustration? Because some people are allergic to strawberries and don’t know it until they eat them. And then they need something to counteract the allergic reaction.
A cautionary tale: AW1Ed advised that he had a bad reaction to an OTC drug CRESTOR** that is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug. (NSAID). **N.B.: I originally put Cortisol in that sentence, because that was the infor I’d been given. The correct name of the drug is Crestor, which is not a steroid bur rather a statin. My apologies and AW1Ed is burying himself in remorse. The side effects of Crestor are serious even when taken according to directions.
There is an entire group of them, none of which require a prescription, and you may not know that you have a sensitivity to any of them until or unless you take the recommended dosage and have a bad reaction, possibly life-threatening, to them.
Reactions to aspirin are common. If you have an aspirin allergy or sensitivity, you may also have a reaction to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), including ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin IB, others) and naproxen sodium (Aleve).
In AW1Ed’s case, it was a previously unknown allergy to the chemistry in Crestor.
As an example:
Aspirin allergy symptoms
An aspirin allergy or sensitivity, or a reaction to NSAIDs, can cause symptoms that range from mild to severe. Reactions occur within minutes to hours of taking the medication. They may include:
Hives
Itchy skin
Runny nose
Red eyes
Swelling of the lips, tongue or face
Coughing, wheezing or shortness of breath
Anaphylaxis — a rare, life-threatening allergic reaction
If you have asthma, nasal polyps, chronic sinusitis or chronic hives (urticaria), you’re more likely to have a reaction to aspirin or NSAIDs. When a reaction occurs, it can worsen symptoms of these conditions. – Mayo Clinic online.
There are many, many OTC pharmaceuticals available. Some of them, like Tylenol, are not NSAIDs. Most are harmless. Just use caution, and remember that the recommended dosage on OTC drugs is the minimum dose. I occasionally have to take an antihistamine during pollen season, so I cut one of those (gagme!) pills in half, and it works just fine. The full dose is far too strong.
Just be careful. And yes, you should ask your doctor about the minimum dosage on prescriptions. Sometimes they mean well but fail to take chemistry sensitivity into account when they write prescriptions. Sometimes half the minimum dosage is sufficient to do the job.
On the other hand, you have people like my dad, who would not give up his whiskey when his doctor told him to, so mixing whiskey with his cardiac and blood pressure meds did have side effects. (He may have enjoyed that, for all I know. 😉 )
Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves"
I like strawberries.
Then you might like this:
https://youtu.be/nndGGnOFvMk?t=1
One of Bogart’s best performances, ever.
“It was the strawberries!”
-Queeg
Yep. Caution is always advisable when taking chemicals of any sort. It’s pretty scary what they can.
Don’t ever want to observe a severe allergic reaction in a loved one again, thank you very much. We lucked out in that the ER doc was reading an article about the latest protocols as we pulled up to the hospital. First time used at that hospital, and they saved a life that day.
Smuckers Strawberry preserves on toast with coffee.
Coupla asprin for the headache and some Aleve for the Gout
caused by the Chondracalcinosis as a manifestation of Hemochromatosis.
Toss back a Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA and let the day begin..
Folks often don’t understand that doctors are faced with different body chemistries and sensitivities interacting with different drug chemistries – and they may have some nasty surprises.
I have sensitivities to a number of very popular antibiotics – which gives my physicians fits. Fortunately penicillin-family drugs are not among them. Unfortunately the bugs are frequently resistant to those.
I recommend reading the precautions and monitoring anytime a new chemical is induced into the system.
Yeah, and dosages of some medications are based on body weight and/or gender. Somebody who might wanna “identify” as a gender other than their real one might be mis-medicated. Is that then the fault of whoever prescribed the medication? Lawyers might have a field day.
Allergic reactions are gnarly. Always a good idea to have a bottle of Benedryl liquid on hand just in case.
I break out in Hives if I use insect repellant
containg DEET. Maybe it could have kept me out of
Vietnam if I knew about it back then.
Too bad so sad.
“…OTC drug (Cortisol) that is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug. (NSAID).”
Cortisol is a steroid. Therefore it can’t be an NSAID.
You are correct. It was supposed to be Crestor, not cortisol.
I checked with AW1Ed on this. He had given me the wrong name of the medication. Please see above.
“In AW1Ed’s case, it was a previously unknown allergy to the chemistry in Cortisol.”
Is this also supposed to say Crestor?
Yes, I’ll fix that.
One common allergy that I find, in this community, is troll allergy. Whenever a troll posts here, many here tend to show their allergenic reaction.
the troll may not see it as an allergenic reaction though.
thebesig, many of us are avoiding the bird flu also, hence the attempt to stay away from seagulls. ‘Specially the spapos breed of seagulls.
Lady Friend found out the hard way she was highly allergic to sulphur based drugs. And I found out the hard way that Plavix put me into a state of paralysis. With a side of severe migraine.
Pro tip, don’t depend on the doctor or his people reading the notes on things you can’t take. That whole sharing of records between care providers? Yeah…no…don’t happen.
Crestor
is the critter, sorry for the confusion. Entirely my fault.
Ex omitted the grisly details – the reaction manifested itself by spiking my physical enzymes to amazing levels, making me so weak I couldn’t rise from sitting. Also scrambled my reality.Some may find it difficult to tell this.
Bottom line, I spent a month in the hospital, and am now recovering from the cure.
Hope to have a real computer early next week.
Am I an extreme example? Sure. But he informed on what the Doc prescribes.
Welcome back.
My doc switched me to a generic version (Rosuvastatin) that works just as well a few years back and is covered fully by my insurance. Fortunately I didn’t have any reactions to Crestor prior to that.
Get well soon and stay well.
Glad you are doing better.
Thanks folks. Much appreciated.
Strawberries trigger a lot of allergies for people who are not allergic to strawberries because they absorb allergens from their environment while growing.
So if you have severe allergies it is often best to avoid strawberries even if you are not allergic to them.
Thank you Captain Obvious. New IP? Again? I do wish people would have the courtesy to stay banned, but you can’t stay away. Sad, really. I’ll deal with you when I’m FMC, unless another Admin gets there first.
Later,
AW1