Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Least-favorite side effect

You may wonder, Heather, you take a lot of medication.  I bet you get a lot of side effects.  Which one bothers you the most?

Well, I take lithium:
For me, Lithium causes nausea, vomiting, and muscle tremors.  It causes a lot of fatigue and brain fog.  I get a ferocious dry mouth and I urinate a lot.  If I reached toxic levels, it would shut down my kidneys and kill me.

I take Haldol:
Haldol gets rid of the nausea and vomiting, but causes a lot of fatigue and brain fog.  I get a ferocious dry mouth.  Twitching can occur, not with me, and oh, yeah, fatal seizures and heart trouble.  It can interact with lithium and cause fatal brain swelling.

I also take Wellbutrin:
Wellbutrin causes headache, nausea, loss of appetite, and dry mouth for me.  After I take it, if I'm fighting a headache, I can feel the blood vessels clamping down in my head - ow!  It works on dopamine, in part, just like the Haldol.  I guess my baseline dopamine production is off.  It can also cause fatal seizures.  Alcohol use is NOT advised, as it can raise the chance of a fatal seizure.

So, you know what bothers me the most?  Well, the nausea did but the Haldol has that, now.

It's the dry mouth.  Oh, I always feel like I'm dying of thirst, drinking buckets of water.  Constantly thirsty.  I drink about one quart a night, just waking up with the dry mouth and drinking out of my water bottle.

It's a small thing, but boy is it annoying, and sanity has to come with a dry mouth.

I will take that over the seizures, thanks!

2 comments:

icebear said...

Do you use dry mouth toothpastes and mouthwashes? I'm also on haldol, it helps me a bit.

Heather Knits said...

They never worked for me. I drink a lot of water, brush pretty often with Colgate Total, and use sugar free candy at night.