Reason 584 That It Sucks To Be Me
July 15, 2005, 03:45 AM
Lee Thompson-Herbert
So I have osteoporosis. My bones break if I sneeze too hard. Really. They have me on Fosamax, a drug that helps one regain lost bone mass. Great. You take it once a week, early in the morning on an empty stomach with a whole lot of water. Problem is, when I did that last week I ended up itching all over with a full-body rash. I didn't wait to see if I was also going to have breathing problems, I bolted down a couple antihistamines and a whole bunch of prednisone. The reaction went away. Problem is, I have a lot of allergies, so we can't be sure it was the Fosamax. But the timing is suspicious. This could really suck.
So tomorrow morning, I'm to take my Fosamax and get my ass to the ER if I have another reaction. And that'll answer that question. I'll be really, really screwed on the osteoporosis front, though. I'm already on Miacalcin, which is given as a nasal spray. However, it doesn't help regain bone mass nearly as well as the biphosphonates and doesn't show the same protection from fractures. And I have an autoimmune disease that goes nuts if I take anything with estrogen in it. So that's out. Which leaves Forteo as the last-ditch medication to try. That's a synthetic parathyroid hormone. It does work. Maybe better than any of the other drugs. But...it's expensive as hell and I'm not sure my insurance will even cover it. And that assumes I can tolerate it at all.
Maybe just this once, my luck won't be bad...
Right.
We've made our plans just assuming that we'll probably end up at the ER tomorrow morning.
Sat July 16, 2005 9:53 pm
So, I'm now allergic to Fosamax, one of the drugs they were giving me in an attempt to pump up my bone density. Since the stuff is only given once a week, it took a while for the allergy to develop, and two reactions for us to be sure it was really the Fosamax. On Friday, I made sure to take none of my other drugs, so it'd be obvious if the Fosamax was what was causing the allergic reaction. I spent a good portion of Friday in the ER. This makes the third ER visit in two weeks. It's just a bad sign when the triage nurse recognizes you.
The good thing here is, when you show up clutching an EpiPen in your hand, a rash over your face, neck, chest and arms, coughing and wheezing, and you tell them you think you're having an allergic reaction to a drug, they try and see you pretty fast. The bad thing was, the place was so crowded, they were stacking patients up in the hallways. I don't know what it was about yesterday, but we noticed a whole lot of ambulances come in while we were there. Enough critical cases that there was no EKG or 02 monitor for them to hook me up to like they normally would. I think they were just glad that George was there with me so someone could run for help if I started to choke. At least we did end up in a room instead of in a hallway.
After shooting me full of a whole lot of injectable antihistamines, giving me more prednisone, and then giving me a breathing treatment, life got better. And I got sent home with prescriptions for a new EpiPen and more prednisone (yay, more bone-rotting goop). Elapsed time: 4-1/2 hours.
I've spent the time since doped up on incredibly high doses of antihistamines, since Fosamax takes several days to get out of your system.
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