This happened to my wife, sadly. They arrested her for DUI when she was having a medical event. Even blew 0.000 on the breathylizer. We don’t drink. For some reason, her bowel medications - every time they’d start working, she’d go wonky. There’s some sort of chemical imbalance there, but doctors haven’t found out what’s going on.
If she takes something that manages to stop it, and return her to normal - some chemical imbalance happens and she starts getting confused easily.
She took IMODIUM, an over the counter product. Also tried with Dicyclomine, and that sent her into a confused state too. And she’s not herself when it happens either (it hasn’t happened in a year, as we managed to isolate these particular medicines; so we know kind of what triggers it) – It’s like she’s fallen asleep, and another person has taken over. She’s lucid, but only barely when it happens. She can argue with you, but she’ll go in/out of consciousness. She’ll restart conversations over and over as she kind of ‘reboots’ constantly in this state. It’s almost narcoleptic in nature the way she’ll just be talking and insta-fall asleep, reboot, and be back awake again.
Upon arrest they took her blood, and found no illegal substances. (she willingly gave them a sample while under arrest because she knew she hadn’t done anything wrong)
Going to chime in where I wasn’t asked here just to give you a new avenue - look up pharmacogenetic testing. It’s expensive, but one blood test and they can tell you which medications you rapidly metabolize or don’t metabolize at all - I found out a common OTC acid reflux med can make me really ill. I also rapidly metabolize certain anti depressants, which explained why I was completely out of it on 1/4 tablet. It also let me know which ones are safe. Your wife might be a rapid metabolizer of some of these meds and not even know it!
I appreciate it more than you could understand; we’ll look into it. Doctors have all told her “it is what it is, nothing we can do about it”. So finding someone else who knows a little bit about this is a huge relief. I appreciate you.
I don’t know exactly what your wife is sensitive to, but I had a similar reaction to drugs that shouldn’t have done a thing to me. No one in my life has ever told me about pharmacogenetic testing, the ONLY reason I ever heard about it is because my new GP used to be a pharmacist.
I tell everyone about it now. You know all those friends who spent a year or two trialing different mental health meds to find one that worked? What if they could just get this test and immediately knock off any that they won’t react to and be forewarned about any they might be sensitive to? It’s amazing!
Sorry to play armchair doctor, but has she tried budesonide? I ask because a friend of mine has/had very similar symptoms. He was diagnosed with microscopic colitis but it was actually mast cell related. Doctors are still trying to figure out what mast cell disorder it is, but the leading theory is the other medication was causing his mast cells to degranulate, whereas budesonide inhibits degranulation.
As someone who also has a mystery mast cell issue (go MCAS!), my mast cells going pop makes me really loopy, sometimes to the point of incoherence.
That’s one of the ones we eliminated that we thought may have been producing the reaction. We’re unwilling to even begin trying to mess with that again, as she would be a VERY big handful during these events. I don’t know if it’s an interaction between budesonide, and dicyclomine or what (or if she was even on them at the same time, or separate times, etc) - but there were a handful of medications that we had her stop, and the events stopped. None of her medications should have produced the effects that we had seen. Nevertheless, cops arrested her for DUI, instead of sending her to the emergency room. :[
This happened to my wife, sadly. They arrested her for DUI when she was having a medical event. Even blew 0.000 on the breathylizer. We don’t drink. For some reason, her bowel medications - every time they’d start working, she’d go wonky. There’s some sort of chemical imbalance there, but doctors haven’t found out what’s going on.
methamphetamine is aweome for making the bowel move, but some people do go wonky from the side effects.
Opposite problem. She’s got microscopic colitis and can’t stop moving bowels.
If she takes something that manages to stop it, and return her to normal - some chemical imbalance happens and she starts getting confused easily.
She took IMODIUM, an over the counter product. Also tried with Dicyclomine, and that sent her into a confused state too. And she’s not herself when it happens either (it hasn’t happened in a year, as we managed to isolate these particular medicines; so we know kind of what triggers it) – It’s like she’s fallen asleep, and another person has taken over. She’s lucid, but only barely when it happens. She can argue with you, but she’ll go in/out of consciousness. She’ll restart conversations over and over as she kind of ‘reboots’ constantly in this state. It’s almost narcoleptic in nature the way she’ll just be talking and insta-fall asleep, reboot, and be back awake again.
Upon arrest they took her blood, and found no illegal substances. (she willingly gave them a sample while under arrest because she knew she hadn’t done anything wrong)
Going to chime in where I wasn’t asked here just to give you a new avenue - look up pharmacogenetic testing. It’s expensive, but one blood test and they can tell you which medications you rapidly metabolize or don’t metabolize at all - I found out a common OTC acid reflux med can make me really ill. I also rapidly metabolize certain anti depressants, which explained why I was completely out of it on 1/4 tablet. It also let me know which ones are safe. Your wife might be a rapid metabolizer of some of these meds and not even know it!
I appreciate it more than you could understand; we’ll look into it. Doctors have all told her “it is what it is, nothing we can do about it”. So finding someone else who knows a little bit about this is a huge relief. I appreciate you.
I don’t know exactly what your wife is sensitive to, but I had a similar reaction to drugs that shouldn’t have done a thing to me. No one in my life has ever told me about pharmacogenetic testing, the ONLY reason I ever heard about it is because my new GP used to be a pharmacist.
I tell everyone about it now. You know all those friends who spent a year or two trialing different mental health meds to find one that worked? What if they could just get this test and immediately knock off any that they won’t react to and be forewarned about any they might be sensitive to? It’s amazing!
Sorry to play armchair doctor, but has she tried budesonide? I ask because a friend of mine has/had very similar symptoms. He was diagnosed with microscopic colitis but it was actually mast cell related. Doctors are still trying to figure out what mast cell disorder it is, but the leading theory is the other medication was causing his mast cells to degranulate, whereas budesonide inhibits degranulation.
As someone who also has a mystery mast cell issue (go MCAS!), my mast cells going pop makes me really loopy, sometimes to the point of incoherence.
That’s one of the ones we eliminated that we thought may have been producing the reaction. We’re unwilling to even begin trying to mess with that again, as she would be a VERY big handful during these events. I don’t know if it’s an interaction between budesonide, and dicyclomine or what (or if she was even on them at the same time, or separate times, etc) - but there were a handful of medications that we had her stop, and the events stopped. None of her medications should have produced the effects that we had seen. Nevertheless, cops arrested her for DUI, instead of sending her to the emergency room. :[