Prescription Cascades in Crohn's Treatment

[kss]

What are some "prescription cascades" which Crohn's patients have faced?

I'm reading a book called "Are Your Prescriptions Killing You?" which is written by a pharmacist. He mentions "prescription cascades" which refers to when one drug leads to side effects and then another drug etc... It's more common in elderly patients but it definitely pertains to everyone. I know it's happened to me when I was first diagnosed with Crohn's. My prescriptions were Prednisone, Levaquin, Pentasa, Flagyl which led to a drug induced psychosis. That led to a stay in a psych ward which I luckily survived but other drugs were given to me during my hospital stay.

 

[SarahBear]

Interesting topic!

When I took Pred, it lead to steroid psychosis but I wasn't given anything for it (just tapered off more quickly). I know it's fairly common for people having insomnia issues on steroids to be given anti-anxiety meds to help with that.

Depression can also result from problems coping with Crohn's, which may require more medications.

I can see a few possible prescription cascades in treating IBD. Very interesting and unfortunate.

 

[UnXmas]

I started taking sleeping meds on prescription to counter the insomnia caused by prednisone. I wouldn't be without them - the insomnia was horrible but the benefits of prednisone meant I really wanted to continue with it.

I do take a lot of meds, though I think that's my only example of this "cascade" that I've done. I don't think I'd worry about doing this more often though. I think that's especially true if the meds really are prescriptions. That's always safer than buying your own meds, to counter side effects or otherwise.

Sorry you had such a bad experience kss.

 

[kss]

After reading SarahBear's post I totally realized I had a vitamin b12 deficiency which wasn't picked up until after I was diagnosed with depression. I was prescribed an SSRI drug called Lexapro. It did nothing helpful for me and made me feel weird. My doctor at the time told me it could take up to 3 months to work. I stopped talking it after about 4 months or so. Then I got a new GI doctor who did a b12 test and I was well below the low end of the range. I'd imagine that's a pretty common scenario with Crohn's patients. The b12 issue is well covered on this forum so hopefully it works to head off that particular prescription cascade.