Changing Medications (Level of Trust Required)

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

Wound up taking an ambulance ride to the emergency room last night. I came down feeling like warmed over crap overall. They took my glucose reading in the ambulance and determined it was 211. Not good. Not sure why. The cardiologist gave me an adjunct diuretic to help out my torsemide earlier in the day, but supposedly it shouldn't have affected my blood sugar. Go figure.

The ER doctor (a right asshole) wound up giving me 100mg of IV Lasix to try and get the swelling in my leg to go down (plus an extra 15mg of oxycodone for my arm). I think I wound up losing 8 pounds, but I can't trust the scale reading I took this morning. I'm going to take it again later on to verify.

[mlooney 3,417]

As many things as you are on, it's not surprising that you get a odd side effect or two.  Glad you are losing weight, hopefully you can get that swelling down.

[Don Edwards 548]

I think pretty much everyone has a weird reaction to some drug or another (or maybe a combination)- but many people don't happen to ever take the drug that is weird for them.

I know my lady has a potentially dangerous reaction to a drug (that, in her, does precisely the opposite of what it's supposed to), and I have a non-dangerous but rather annoying reaction to a different drug (messes up my sense of taste, which is irrelevant to what it's for).

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

Took a second dose of the adjunct diuretic today and suffered the same damned symptoms as last night. Blood sugar had nothing to do with it. Reported it to my cardiologist. He said it might be related to my allergy to sulfa drugs (!!!). We're stopping the drug immediately and planning on asking my primary care doctor to switch me over to something called Dimox, another adjunct diuretic that isn't related to sulfa drugs.

I hate pills.

[mlooney 3,417]

How soon can they switch you over to the "new" diuretic? 

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

2 hours ago, mlooney said:

How soon can they switch you over to the "new" diuretic? 

Probably Thursday - that's when my doctor's appointment is.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

I'm on the new diuretic (properly spelled "Diamox"). It is in fact a treatment for altitude sickness that just happens to have diuretic properties. Side effects include dizziness, lightheadedness, and increased urination. I've got the first two for certain. I was warned by the pharmacist that it might be related to sulfa, just like the other adjunct diuretic that caused my adverse reaction. Before I took it, I called my prescribing doctor and asked him about it. He looked it up and said the chances of it causing a similar reaction were next to nil, but he left the choice as to whether or not I should take it up to me.

I went ahead and took at dose.

Now, I must preface this next part by saying I had a bad headache before I took it. I don't know if it was a migraine or not. Still, I didn't take a migraine pill after taking the Diamox, to prevent further drug interactions. So, after taking the medicine, I was okay (minus the headache) for a couple of hours. Then the side effects mentioned above set in. They lasted for several hours. I didn't really get a full-blown diuretic effect from it, but then again, this was a dose taken away from my regular torsemide diuretic (I'm to take the Diamox 2x a day). Maybe the morning dose will have more of a diuretic effect. Anyway, the headache didn't get any worse, so I am going to experiment with a dose in the morning. Here's hoping I don't have a headache in the morning.

[mlooney 3,417]

7 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Side effects include dizziness, lightheadedness, and increased urination.

I would think that a diuretic would have increased urination.  That's the point.  Sorta like sleeping pills that have "drowsiness" as a possible side effect.  I hope so, that's why I'm taking it!

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

2 hours ago, mlooney said:

I would think that a diuretic would have increased urination.  That's the point.

That's the thing, though. I haven't noticed a marked increase in urination yet.

I'm on my second Diamox dose now. Took it about an hour ago. I'm expecting it to really kick in in another hour, at which point any side effects should be felt, and any increased urination should begin.

[mlooney 3,417]

11 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

That's the thing, though. I haven't noticed a marked increase in urination yet.

I'm on my second Diamox dose now. Took it about an hour ago. I'm expecting it to really kick in in another hour, at which point any side effects should be felt, and any increased urination should begin.

I drink a lot of tea, like 2 liters a morning. I urinate about 4 times a morning and 2 or 3 times an afternoon, plus, normally, a middle of the night one.  I'm not sure what I would do if I started taking a diuretic.  Live in the restroom I think.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

The Diamox appears to be working. Last night's dose didn't cause so much dizziness and lightheadedness. The increased urination from both of yesterday's doses, however, was evident. I weighed myself this morning and found myself only 3 pounds above my base weight - a drop of 11 pounds from Wednesday's primary care physician's appointment's weighing and a drop of 10 pounds from Friday's weighing.

Fingers crossed that the trend continues after this morning's dose.

[mlooney 3,417]

2 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

The Diamox appears to be working. Last night's dose didn't cause so much dizziness and lightheadedness.

Yay!  Hope things keep going well.  Like I've said, I pee enough as it is, I'm sorta afraid of what would happen if I took a diuretic. 

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

Well, fsck.

I have been second-hand exposed to COVID-19. Mrs. Prof's brother was up this weekend to help with some shedbuilding work, and he found out via phone that he'd been first-hand exposed to COVID-19. Now, he's fully vaxxed and boosted, as are Mrs. Prof and I, so I don't know what kind of danger her and I are in. I've sent a system message to my primary care doctor to ask what I should do - should I isolate, should I test, or what - and will be awaiting his response on Monday.

Like I really needed this. I don't blame my brother-in-law - there's nothing he could have done about it. It's just one more vector pointing its arrow at me in an already crowded field. Sigh.

[mlooney 3,417]

That sucks.  I'd get tested at least.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

51 minutes ago, mlooney said:

That sucks.  I'd get tested at least.

I have to. I can't get urine tested for my pain medicine requirements until I do.

[mlooney 3,417]

Well, that's good, more or less.  I take it you don't have the home test kit they were handing out a while ago.  Or do those not count?

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

9 hours ago, mlooney said:

Well, that's good, more or less.  I take it you don't have the home test kit they were handing out a while ago.  Or do those not count?

The home tests don't count because they can be "made up" - no verifiable documentation. I had to go to a CVS. My test was negative, BTW. Phew.

[mlooney 3,417]

7 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

My test was negative, BTW. Phew.

That's good.  So far I've avoided needing to take a test. I understand that they aren't very pleasant as they really need to get deep in the nasal cavity.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

2 hours ago, mlooney said:

So far I've avoided needing to take a test. I understand that they aren't very pleasant as they really need to get deep in the nasal cavity.

Depends on the kind of test. For the lab test, yes, they need to do the "brain scrape," as I so lovingly call it. For the rapid antigen test I had yesterday, not so much - only about an inch.

[mlooney 3,417]

1 hour ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Depends on the kind of test. For the lab test, yes, they need to do the "brain scrape," as I so lovingly call it. For the rapid antigen test I had yesterday, not so much - only about an inch.

The 5 test kits I have are rapid antigen, I think.  I got them when the government was offering them to anybody back in January.  Haven't been ill with any thing like Covid symptoms since I got them so they are still unused.   Hopefully they will stay that way.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

I finally have an appointment to begin physical therapy for my neck surgery recovery next Wednesday, and not a moment too soon. My right arm is rapidly becoming useless. The pain is unremittingly intense. Granted, it's only getting up to a 7, but it's that way almost all the damned time now. There's little to no respite. It used to ebb down to a 4, but now it's only ebbing down to a 6. The pain moves, too - one moment it's in my elbow, then it's in my shoulder, then it's in the whole arm. I can't go to the ER because it'll do me no good.

God, I hope the therapy helps.

[mlooney 3,417]

I hope it helps. PT did a lot of good for my shoulder when I had my rotator cuff problems.  Of course that wasn't a bad as your issues, but before I couldn't more or less move my right arm and after it was more or less back to normal.

 

[mlooney 3,417]

I hope I just slept on my left arm wrong.  I'm not having any other heart attack symptoms, so I'm not going to the ER just yet.  I took some acetaminophen with caffeine a few minutes ago.  If this doesn't help I'll look into going to the ER.  An ER visit is $90 with my insurance, the problem is getting there at 03:00 in the morning.  Don't want to call an ambulance and I'm not sure that the taxi is running this time of night.  Yeah, the taxi.  Only have one company in town.

[mlooney 3,417]

5 hours ago, mlooney said:

I hope I just slept on my left arm wrong.  I'm not having any other heart attack symptoms, so I'm not going to the ER just yet.  I took some acetaminophen with caffeine a few minutes ago.  If this doesn't help I'll look into going to the ER.  An ER visit is $90 with my insurance, the problem is getting there at 03:00 in the morning.  Don't want to call an ambulance and I'm not sure that the taxi is running this time of night.  Yeah, the taxi.  Only have one company in town.

I seem to be good. The acetaminophen kicked in and I could sleep. Not feeling any pain this morning, so all should be good. 

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

7 hours ago, mlooney said:

I seem to be good. The acetaminophen kicked in and I could sleep. Not feeling any pain this morning, so all should be good. 

Good to hear this. That was a scare.