I went to my doctor last Friday (March 27th) and he prescribed two types of medication for anxiety/insomnia. Wednesday morning, at 2 AM, I woke up with a horrible rash. I couldn't sleep most of the night because I kept waking up with such irritated skin. I know I am allergic to Penicillin and Bactrim (Sulfa drugs) as I had bad reactions when I was little so my immediate instinct was that this was a reaction to the new medication. My entire abdomen and chest were all red and covered with bumps. I called my doctor's office and made an appointment for that day at 10:30 AM. My doctor was not in so I had to see another doctor in the office. As I was sitting in the table in the little paper shirt I noticed that since I had called earlier in the morning it had now spread to my arms. The doctor didn't seem too concerned. He told me to stop taking the meds, gave me an anti-histamine and sent me on my way. Basically he said if I can still breath then I was fine and it was nothing to worry about. I took the pill and went to work. By the end of the work day my arms were looking even worse. The rash continued to get worse, and I was feeling worse.
I called my doctor on Thursday. He said to try taking Benadryl, so I did. He said he'd call and check up with me on Friday morning.
Thursday night/Friday morning I continued to get drastically worse. I was up pacing around the entire night because it hurt to have anything touch my body and I was in incredible pain and had terrible itching. New bumps had formed ALL OVER that were filled with fluid and were leaking. I sent a message to my boyfriend to come straight over in the morning instead of going to work. I needed to either go back to the doctor or to the hospital. It was spreading ever further to my neck, scalp, back, thighs, and knees and I was in agony. I couldn't wait for my doctor to call so at 9 AM I called him and they gave me an appointment for 10:30. The nurse that first saw me noted that I had a fever of 100 and also gained 7 POUNDS since my appointment on the 27th, exactly one week before. That means that I was all swollen and retained 7 pounds of fluid since the start of the reaction. Then the doctor came in and took a look. After looking me over for a few minutes he came back in with 2 other doctors, including the one I had seen on Wednesday, so that they could take a look as well. Then they called in a dermatologist to take a look. They all concurred, or guessed, that it was indeed a more severe reaction to the drug. None of them were sure though and they ordered several other tests. They prescribed the generic version of allegra, an anit-biotic, and a steroid cream. When the first three doctors were discussing treatment while waiting for the dermatologist my doctor asked the "elder statesman" of the group if he thougt 20MG prednisone would work. He pointed his thumb upward and said we need to treat this more aggressively. 40 milligrams, my doctor asked? And the other doc pumped his thumb upward once again. The dermatologist said that I should use a steroid cream instead. For some reason he thought taking it orally could actually mak me worse. Another reaction, I guess. By the time I got home from the appoinment and the pharmacy, about two hours later, my shirt was pretty drenched from the leaking fluids. It basically felt like the worst sunburn you'd ever had, only worse, with all kinds of leaking blisters everywhere.
Believe it or not, I actually did crack a smile during the appointment. I had one doctor lifting the paper shirt to look at my back, another lifting the other paper draped over my legs to look at my thighs, another lifting the front of my paper shirt. The dermatologist looked in my throat too and said he saw some redness and called my doctor over so they were both hovered together flashing a light and inspecting. It felt very surreal. It was funny how it seemed like I was some inanimate object, as if they were all in medical school learning about drug reactions and rashes on some cadaver. For whatever reason, that scene just struck me as somewhat funny.
After coming back and taking all the prescriptions and putting on the cream and taking tylenol for the fever, I was finally able to sleep for the first time since essentially Monday night. I took a 2.5 hour nap. And last night I was able to sleep for about 5.5 hours. I tried sleeping in bed but the only position I could really lay in was on my back and I can't really sleep like that. I ended up moving to the couch and was eventually able to fall asleep there.
This morning I woke up doing much better (finally!). I am still bright red and itchy and in a little pain but almost all of those little fluid-filled bumps are gone. I can actually keep a shirt on for more than an hour without it getting all disgusting! I am still all swollen and retaining a lot of fluid and have a little fever, but the tylenol is taking care of that pretty well.
The doctors said they weren't sure yet if this was an incredibly severe, mild reaction or a mild, severe reaction. Essentially things could still get worse (throat closing up, etc) and I could end up in the hospital for IV treatment. If I didn't get better quickly, that's where they were going to have to send me. I was so happy to see even mild improvement in the last 24 hours. It's been pretty much the WORST WEEK EVER but I am hopeful that I will continue to get better and that at my appointment on Monday I will maybe have some more answers.
I also have to note that my boyfriend has been IN-CREDIBLE throughout this ordeal. He's done a great job taking care of me, doing things for me that are even making me gag, such as help applying cream in certain parts I can't do myself.
I called my doctor on Thursday. He said to try taking Benadryl, so I did. He said he'd call and check up with me on Friday morning.
Thursday night/Friday morning I continued to get drastically worse. I was up pacing around the entire night because it hurt to have anything touch my body and I was in incredible pain and had terrible itching. New bumps had formed ALL OVER that were filled with fluid and were leaking. I sent a message to my boyfriend to come straight over in the morning instead of going to work. I needed to either go back to the doctor or to the hospital. It was spreading ever further to my neck, scalp, back, thighs, and knees and I was in agony. I couldn't wait for my doctor to call so at 9 AM I called him and they gave me an appointment for 10:30. The nurse that first saw me noted that I had a fever of 100 and also gained 7 POUNDS since my appointment on the 27th, exactly one week before. That means that I was all swollen and retained 7 pounds of fluid since the start of the reaction. Then the doctor came in and took a look. After looking me over for a few minutes he came back in with 2 other doctors, including the one I had seen on Wednesday, so that they could take a look as well. Then they called in a dermatologist to take a look. They all concurred, or guessed, that it was indeed a more severe reaction to the drug. None of them were sure though and they ordered several other tests. They prescribed the generic version of allegra, an anit-biotic, and a steroid cream. When the first three doctors were discussing treatment while waiting for the dermatologist my doctor asked the "elder statesman" of the group if he thougt 20MG prednisone would work. He pointed his thumb upward and said we need to treat this more aggressively. 40 milligrams, my doctor asked? And the other doc pumped his thumb upward once again. The dermatologist said that I should use a steroid cream instead. For some reason he thought taking it orally could actually mak me worse. Another reaction, I guess. By the time I got home from the appoinment and the pharmacy, about two hours later, my shirt was pretty drenched from the leaking fluids. It basically felt like the worst sunburn you'd ever had, only worse, with all kinds of leaking blisters everywhere.
Believe it or not, I actually did crack a smile during the appointment. I had one doctor lifting the paper shirt to look at my back, another lifting the other paper draped over my legs to look at my thighs, another lifting the front of my paper shirt. The dermatologist looked in my throat too and said he saw some redness and called my doctor over so they were both hovered together flashing a light and inspecting. It felt very surreal. It was funny how it seemed like I was some inanimate object, as if they were all in medical school learning about drug reactions and rashes on some cadaver. For whatever reason, that scene just struck me as somewhat funny.
After coming back and taking all the prescriptions and putting on the cream and taking tylenol for the fever, I was finally able to sleep for the first time since essentially Monday night. I took a 2.5 hour nap. And last night I was able to sleep for about 5.5 hours. I tried sleeping in bed but the only position I could really lay in was on my back and I can't really sleep like that. I ended up moving to the couch and was eventually able to fall asleep there.
This morning I woke up doing much better (finally!). I am still bright red and itchy and in a little pain but almost all of those little fluid-filled bumps are gone. I can actually keep a shirt on for more than an hour without it getting all disgusting! I am still all swollen and retaining a lot of fluid and have a little fever, but the tylenol is taking care of that pretty well.
The doctors said they weren't sure yet if this was an incredibly severe, mild reaction or a mild, severe reaction. Essentially things could still get worse (throat closing up, etc) and I could end up in the hospital for IV treatment. If I didn't get better quickly, that's where they were going to have to send me. I was so happy to see even mild improvement in the last 24 hours. It's been pretty much the WORST WEEK EVER but I am hopeful that I will continue to get better and that at my appointment on Monday I will maybe have some more answers.
I also have to note that my boyfriend has been IN-CREDIBLE throughout this ordeal. He's done a great job taking care of me, doing things for me that are even making me gag, such as help applying cream in certain parts I can't do myself.
I have similar problems with sulfa drugs. Not nearly as bad as you explained though. I get the horrible rash, awful taste radiating up my throat and one time I swear it felt like electric shocks were running thru my body, especially my legs. Terrible!
Yeah, drug reactions are no fun! Hopefully there are other antibiotics out there that you can tolerate much better should you need them.
At this point my doctors are still trying to figure out if this really is one of the most severe drug reactions they've ever seen, or some sort of auto-immune disorder.