Osceola Mills, PA:Patients who have suffered from Reglan side effects know how serious those complications can be. Now that a link has been found between Reglan and Tardive Dyskinesia, a black box warning has been ordered for the drug. However, that warning comes much too late for Tracy S., who says she was only on the drug for a couple of days but has suffered through years of side effects. She believes the Reglan medication is too dangerous a drug to stay on the market.
"The first day I took Reglan, I couldn't sit still," Tracy says. "I had to walk continuously. The second day was the same. It was just like I was pacing constantly. By the third day, Wednesday, I started shaking. I had little tremors. I didn't know what was going on. By Friday, I was so bad with tremors that I couldn't function. I called my regular doctor [not the one who prescribed Tracy the Reglan] and told her what I was on. She told me that no matter what I had to stop taking the Reglan.
"I was shaking so bad on Saturday that my dad took me to the ER. They gave me 2 shots of Benadryl and told me to go home. I walked 8 feet and collapsed in the ER. I was kept in the hospital for 5 days and for a few days, I wasn't even allowed out of the hospital bed. On the third day, someone from physical therapy came up and walked me—I couldn't walk on my own because my legs would just give out. On the fifth day, I could walk on my own, so I went home.
"A week later, the tremors started, bad, all over again. For 7 months I lay on the couch. I didn't know my kids or my husband and I was seeing things. They had me on other medications, they had me on Effexor and Klonapam and Benztropine. It was just horrible. I'm lucky I'm alive.
"This was in 1999—about 10 years ago. I still have tremors. Sometimes my whole body just shakes. I went to the Cleveland Clinic and the specialist said that Reglan burnt my nerves. I'll never be 100 percent. I'll be lucky if I get back to 98 percent. And that was from a specialist. They had me on the Benztropine, which causes 'rabbit face' [tremors resulting in a rabbit-like movement of the face] and I still have that. I also have a white halo around my eyes. I've been to doctors about that but they say they can't help me.
"There are times when I want to say stuff but I can't get it out—I slur my words. I probably experience the tremors just about every day, but I try to ignore it.
"Both the specialist and that doctor said that Reglan started this. My doctor said that I'm a textbook case of allergic reaction to Reglan. They can't really do anything. It's just something that I deal with everyday. It's like my body wants to shake and my insides want to shake. I could be walking in my house and I would collapse. I was in the hospital with anxiety and I've never had anxiety before. I went into a mental institution but they said they couldn't keep me because I'm not mentally ill. I just have Parkinson's-like symptoms.
"This has affected my daily life. I could go to doctors and they could give me medications and I don't know if that will start the tremors all over again. I don't know what will set them off. I was never allergic to medications before that Reglan. When I got the drug, I didn't know about it. I didn't have a paper on the side effects.
"It will affect me the rest of my life—it actually burnt my nerves. I was hallucinating out of my mind and we went through bankruptcy because of this.
"I want people to know how bad of a drug Reglan is. I don't know if I can pursue a settlement because of this. I think if they're going to sue the company that I am entitled to a lump sum for what it did to me. That drug should be taken off the market. It is dangerous. I was a walking zombie.
"It's been 10 years since this started and I've got a lot to say about what I went through. It's taken 10 years for this information about Reglan to come out. This could have been prevented in other people. I got this over constipation—that's why I took Reglan in the first place. It's not worth it."
I am so sorry for your experience with this drug and you are very lucky to be alive, I also want to thank you for taking the time to inform others of your experience it may save lives. My husband of seventeen years was put on this drug 4X a day for over five months. He called the doctors several times with reactions he did not realize he was having from this medication. After the last call about severe anxiety, jitteriness, having trouble swallowing, chest felt tight etc., they never even went back to the fact that it was this medication. A few weeks later he committed suicide. No history of depression and a wonderful father and husband. You see even the doctors themselves were not given the proper findings from the clinical studies that the pharmaceutical company knew all along. So now all I want to do is reach out to others so they don't have to go through the horrific experience that myself and my kids have. Keep up the fight and good luck.
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"The first day I took Reglan, I couldn't sit still," Tracy says. "I had to walk continuously. The second day was the same. It was just like I was pacing constantly. By the third day, Wednesday, I started shaking. I had little tremors. I didn't know what was going on. By Friday, I was so bad with tremors that I couldn't function. I called my regular doctor [not the one who prescribed Tracy the Reglan] and told her what I was on. She told me that no matter what I had to stop taking the Reglan.
