This past Friday I had to take my progesterone again. I take it every other morning and Friday was the 2nd day of taking it. The first time I took the medication I noticed some nausea and dizziness, but b/c I've been fighting a virus since December 31st I contributed a lot of my symptoms to that. But this past Friday, January 6th, I was at work and all of a sudden I got that cold wash over me as if I was about to throw up and when I stood up I thought that I was going to fall over. I also felt extremely anxious, which is out of character for me. Now I do acknowledge that I am a worrier and sometimes (most of the time) I over think things, but this was something different. My heart felt like it was beating out of my chest but when I checked my pulse it was completely normal. I felt as if I couldn't get a good, deep breath. To be honest I was really scared. I called my RE's office and of course had to leave a message and wait for someone to call me back. I was able to speak with a nurse at my GYN's office though and she said she would get back to me as soon as possible. I couldn't work, b/c every time I stood up I felt like falling down. It felt like vertigo, but the worst case I've ever had. All of these symptoms started about 2 hours after taking the medication. My GYN office called me back and said that b/c they don't prescribe this medication a lot that they would have to refer my possible side effects to my RE, but they did say that it sounded like side effects to them. One of the girls at my office is a RN and said that she has these anxiety type symptoms sometimes too, and honestly as soon as I knew what they were I was able to take some deep breaths and calm myself down. Not that the symptoms completely went away, but they were better. My RE finally called me back and said that the symptoms I was describing had never been reported by another patient. I simply told this lady that these symptoms were in the handouts given with the medication so apparently at some point in time someone had complained of them. The RE office was of no help! The simply told me that if I thought that these effects were related to the medication to stop them and take a Benadryl. That's right folks, the stinkin nurse told me to stop the medication (that is only taken every other day so obviously I'm not taking another dose for at least 2 days) and take a Benadryl. Why thank you so much RE office. I may not be a nurse, but by goodness I work in a physician office. I figured that part out all on my own. I felt like these people were not taking my case seriously at all. To be honest, I got ticked off at them....again.
Luckily, I have a sister-in-law who has been through a similar situation AND is also a RN. So I called her. She said that she does remember feeling some vertigo with her medication also (A HA!) and that there was nothing to worry about. She did some research for me and after I gave her some of the clinical information for the medication we were able to come up with a plan to change the time of day that I take the medicine. I know that the doctor said every other morning, but obviously that ain't working for me. So we decided to take it a little early and do it at bedtime. I took the medicine last night before bed, about 7 hours earlier, and woke up with some nausea and vertigo. No where near as bad as Friday's symptoms. But no anxiety! Woo hoo!
I can't just stop this medicine b/c we have come so far with this IUI cycle. I can't just give up now. The medicine is there to give my body a little more time for this pregnancy (hopefully) to have a chance. And just stopping it will send a message that it's time for AF, not what I want. Especially since I spent 6 days giving myself shots and countless lab tests and ultrasounds. So for now, I am taking the medicine at bedtime and so far, so good. After all that hoopla with my RE office, all I needed was someone to listen to me and validate that these effects that I'm having are real and how to fix them. Geez people! Thank God for my sister-in-law who was able to research for me and listen to me and give me an option for how to proceed. And guess what? It worked!
Oh, and P.S. I googled the anxiety issue and a TON of women complained of this with the type of progesterone that I'm on. So (raspberry sound) to you REACH!
No comments:
Post a Comment