Sunday, January 22, 2012

Side Effects May Include...

I'm a little disappointed in my doctor.

He put me on two medications to help me recover from the car wreck, the first being a muscle relaxer and the second being a pain reliever.  I asked a few questions- should I take them on an empty or full stomach, things like that.   He answered my questions, then added that the muscle relaxer may make me sleepy.

It didn't, but that's ok.

However, he completely neglected to mention any other side effects that might occur.

I've been feeling weird lately.  Elevated heart rate, dizzy, shortness of breath- that kind of thing.  Unfortunately (well, no, make that fortunately..for the most part), I am completely unused to taking medicines and it never occurred to me to look up side effects until Tim mentioned I should.  I blame it on the brain fog this medication had me in.

I forgot my meds yesterday and while we were out all day, I felt pretty ok, other than a bit of pain.  I got home, popped my pills and almost immediately here came the fluttery heart feeling.  Oh yeah- I was supposed to look up side effects.

Both medications list a racing heart and shortness of breath as a severe side effect.  One of those "stop taking immediately and call your doctor" side effects.  I had one or two other problems that were just the normal "this might happen to you" type things, but it bugs me that he never even mentioned "Oh yeah.  If you feel like you are on the verge of your heart exploding, that's a side effect.  Stop taking your medicine and call me."

Is that really too much to ask?

-Kristen

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