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  • Medications and "Flip Flop" Emotions

    Posted by brittany-foster on April 4, 2019 at 11:06 am

    We all are familiar with medications causing a list of unpleasant side effects and symptoms. But how many have experience with medications impacting your mental health, more specifically causing you to become angry and easily agitated? I have noticed this when taking certain medications, not necessarily PH specific medication.

    When I am prescribed high doses of prednisone, not only does it make me feel swollen and hungry all the time, but it causes me to feel rage and angry. I either get angry or the exact opposite emotions and I feel overly happy. It’s a very extreme emotional shift from my everyday “normal”. I really don’t like taking this medication but sometimes steroids are necessary, especially when I get any type of lung related infection.

    Another medication that has this type of “flip flop” of emotions is pain medication. When I am given pain medication in hospitals or when I am taking it at home for severe pain, I am either overly happy and comforting to others and to myself or I am completely miserable and I make sure everyone knows about it.

    When under the influence of medications, it is hard to have any type of control over my flip flopping emotions. Do you notice emotional changes when taking medications? What medications lead to a change of emotions for you? Do you give those around you some type of “warning” when taking these medications?

    brittany-foster replied 4 years, 11 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies
  • kathleen-sheffer

    Member
    April 4, 2019 at 8:05 pm

    The tricky thing for me with prednisone is I never know when it will hit. Sometimes it takes a week or more for a high dose to affect my mood. Sometimes the withdrawal symptoms can last a whole month. It’s one thing to tell someone I’m taking prednisone today and might be grumpy and another to be having manic episodes every other day for a month. It’s hard not to start believing it’s just you.

    The most comforting thing for me when I’m having these emotional highs and lows is to commiserate with people who understand. There are loads of prednisone memes on the internet. I know you are kind of the queen of medically relevant memes so I’m sure you’ve seen a bunch. Feel free to text me whenever you’re having these symptoms. I’m fairly confident that no one in history has reacted as poorly to prednisone as I do. My doctors were stunned. (:

    • brittany-foster

      Member
      April 8, 2019 at 7:45 am

      “Leave them stunned” is my motto at all doctors appointments LOL! Why not stand out in all the ways possible, right? (just kidding) I know it’s the worst and you’re right that you kind of start thinking “am I just like this?” (cue meme: “why am I like this?” literally what I ask myself every single day). I definitely will send you a text when I’m in one of my moods. Like I said, it’s not even just the prednisone that does it. I sometimes turn into the one woman exorcist when taking pain medications. It even had the effect on me when I was younger. My mom kept journals while I was in the hospital as a kid and apparently when I was 4 and had my back surgery and was on pain medicine I cried for hours because I asked her if the popsicle I was eating “tasted like farts” and she said “no it’s orange” and I chucked it at her hahahahahaha TRUE STORY!

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