Singulair and exhaustion

I am a 41-year old female with allergy induced asthma, who has been taking Singulair for almost 1 1/2 years now. I was diagnosed with depression about 5 years ago (after my sister's death) and was taking 100mg of Zoloft daily, which my doctor upped to 200mg around the same time I started Singulair for allergy problems. I did not know about the Singulair/depression warnings until searching today on Google for drug interactions on the meds I take in hopes of trying to find a reason for my overwhelming depression. For the past 1 1/2 years, I have lived like a zombie, numb to the world and my family, gave up a $72K job, gained alot of weight, have the weirdest and most vivid dreams, and am tired all of the time, only finding rest after 10-15 hours of sleep per day. I am a working professional, have a Master's degree, and have always considered myself a rational objective person, and not a "lemming" that follows the rest over the cliff. However, the side effects I am experiencing ARE NOT NORMAL and ARE NOT IMAGINARY. I do not know if Singulair is causing my symptoms or not, however, I am going to stop taking the medicine today, and switch to something else. For me, QUALITY OF LIFE is the major issue. While Singulair works great to help me breathe comfortably, I can find other meds to do the same thing. However, what I cannot take is a medication possibly responsible for taking my "life" away.

(A divorced father)
My son has been on Singulair now 5 years and I am in the middle of fighting to get him off. My son is now 7 years old and has been diagnosed with allergies (no test have been done which I find very odd), which leads to a case of mild asthma. This past weekend his mother forgot his Singular on Friday so I could not give him any till the next day, where we met at his soccer game. Saturday night I gave him his usual pill and thankfully due to his exhaustion from playing out side all day he went to sleep in 10 min. vs 3 hrs later which is the norm since Singulair seems to jack him up.
He also has red puffiness under his eyes - most likely allergies.
Seems depressed - just driving down the road and I look at him in the rear view mirror and he just sits and stares into space. When I ask what's wrong he either says nothing or I am tired.
He will try to tell a story or think for himself and just stops mid sentence and says " never mind I am just confused"
He will be having fun one moment and just starts crying or gets depressed.
He was throwing a ball in the house (yes I know) and accidentally knocked a glass over breaking it - he went running to his room, crawled under his bed and sobbed profusely for over 30 min.
He has a hard time doing / focusing on homework - becomes bored very easily.
Does not want to go outside. I will take him to allot of cultural events/ hands on or participation events - he will not try anything. He is unsure and will not come out of his box so to speak.
I spoke with his doctor who was reluctant to take him off, but then agreed that if it was OK with the ex, to take him off for a week to see what happens.
The fun part: My ex is convinced that since he has been on Singulair for 5 years he is fine and does not need to come off it.

1.) Son is diagnosed with mild asthma or allergy induced asthma.
He has never had an allergy test done and has not had a lung function test in over a year.

2.) It is documented that our son has four outbreaks a year. (sounds like the changing of the seasons) but is given Singulair all year round and the dosage has also been increased.

3.) Since the court order, ordered my ex to enroll our son in sports (she would not let him play anything) he does not wheeze or cough uncontrollably.

4.) Since I had to battle to get our son on my insurance I have cut her control issues off a little, but she is refusing to take him off Singular just for a week to see how he reacts. Although I do agree that he should have some form of allergies medicine.

5.) When I found out about the side effects of Singulair, I also found that his doctor was getting ready to add two other allergy medicines to his portfolio - totaling 3 different meds.

I see our sons behavior getting worse and I watch him turn into something he is not and with a controlling individual not believing anything about the side effects it looks like I will have to rely on the medical system to prove my point. I do believe he needs to be accurately tested for allergies and given a regularly lung function test but most of all since he is now on my insurance, a second opinion and a 3rd to narrow down what the situation is and an alternative medical procedure that is fit for the symptoms.

I see posts from people saying that they are not experiencing any negative side effects. That's wonderful--if you or your child can take this medication without any problems, go for it. Yes, the boards for other drugs do list extreme reactions, but if you look around, you won't find many with as many postings as this Singulair board has. I was shocked by how many postings there are here. And yes, this board had over 1000 posts even before the news story broke yesterday. I came here back in late February concerned only about my son's insomnia; only after reading the other posts did I realize that many of the other things I had been concerned (depression, fits of rage, exhaustion) could be linked to this drug.

If it works for you or your child, wonderful. Many people probably won't be affected at all by these negative side effects. But there are millions of people on Singulair. If only 10% have the serious side effects, that would be **hundreds of thousands of people**.

No side effects here - my 5 year old has been on Singulair since he was 2 1/2 and has showed no strange symptoms outside of those of a normal 5 year old boy. He has asthma and severe allergies - including a nut/peanut allergy. He also takes Zyrtec in the Spring and Summer seasons (heavy allergy time for him). Gets good grades in Kindergarten and has never had emotional/behavioral issues at school or at home. I am shocked to hear that people are having these extreme reactions! Although, it seems that there are always going to be reactions to ANY drug out there - go to any of the boards on any drug and you will find people with extreme reactions. Singulair has saved my sons lungs, and possibly his life.

In 2001 my daughter started Singular for about 3 years to treat what the doctors said was childhood asthma. After being on the medication for a few months she started having nightmares and was terrified about going to sleep. Unfortunately, I did not relate this to the medication. We did extensive research on the Singular before starting her on the med.. No- where did we find anxiety, nightmares, or impulsiveness as a side effect. Two years into the med we brought my daughter to see a psychologist because of the nightmares, who diagnosed her with anxiety and impulsiveness. We didn't medicate her for either; however, we did use behavior modification. Although the behavior modification helped slightly with the impulsiveness, it did not do anything for the fear she endured when it became nighttime. She would not go to sleep in fear of the nightmares until pure exhaustion hit. After being on the med for 3 years it stopped working so we took her off. A few weeks after being off a friend asked if my daughter was still on Singular because the FDA just came out with information about it causing vivid dreams that could cause anxiety that Merck seemed to have held back as a side effect. A few months of being off the med and the nightmares went away. Unfortunately, she was on the med for so long and because she was so young I don't know if this caused any long term effects such as the anxiety and impulsiveness that has now became part of her personality. Being 3 years old and taking it for 3 years how can that not make an impact on a child's personality. They are learning things at that age about themselves and the way they rationalize things. Fortunately, she is extremely intelligent and hopefully as she grows older she will mature enough to deal with the anxiety and impulses.

Daughter was sick for 6 weeks with what started as a virus . Dr.'s said virus needed to run it's course and allergies were also bad so they put her on Singulair. When she wasn't improving they said she had mono. No improvement, still mono. Still not improving, more specific test, not mono. Dr's chalked it up as she had a virus and was now just depressed from being down for so long. Well when you have mono u r told not do anything and only rest. After weeks of doing this she was depressed and weak. Then we were told that the diagnosis was wrong and we were had been trying to nurse the wrong sickness. Dr's said to send her back to school. By that time our daughter was so far gone it wasn't possible. Every time we left the house she would scream and panic. Experiencing exhaustion and not her self (She loves school & was always a very happy child) I knew there had to be something wrong with her. They sent her to the hospital lab twice and found nothing. Still trying to say she is only depressed but now being rude about by saying that we were just giving her, her way. My husband & I decided that the Dr.'s were not doing there part and trying to get to the bottom of her illness. So we began looking at what had been different in her life over this period of time (5 weeks).The only thing that had changed in her life other than her catching a virus was that she was put on Singulair. We had enough common sense to know that some people may have a reaction to some medicines that others won't. And just because not every Dr. has experienced this doesn't mean it can't happen.We read the pamphlet and all of the side effects. Even the rare ones she was experiencing. Shaking that looked like seizures, body aches, numbness in fingers and toes, extreme fatigue, loss of appetite, weight loss, irrational behavior, anxiety, paranoia, coughing, depressed, swelling of the lips, hallucinations, blurred vision,screaming every time she left the house, and complaining of constant pain. We felt like that had to be what it was. So we researched it and found on medications.com story after story of children who had gone through the same thing that she was experiencing. Dr was very rude and said she had never heard of that before and just send her back to school. So my husband ad I made the decision to take her off the med. The day before we rushed her to the hospital was her last day on the Singulair. That turning point was the seizure like shaking,hallucinations, saying that she couldn't hardly see us.That night in the ER they ran a CT Scan and found nothing. They admitted her in the pediatrics unit and we began a week that felt much like a month. They started her on an IV. They called in different Dr's...resident Dr's, pediatricians, etc. Everyone said our theory on the Singulair was possible but since they had never personally experienced a case of that they just weren't sure.When no one could figure out what was wrong they then called in a neurologist. He was very concerned and immediately started assessing her and ordering blood work and tests. She had an MRI and an EEG. All came back normal. He listened to our theory and said it was possible but to be sure he wanted to test for for everything else to make sure nothing was being missed. She had lost 5 lbs before her hospital stay and not sure how much more after that but while in the hospital when I bathed her, it was so sad to see her stomach all shrunken in. They put her on 5 different medicines while in the hospital that we were so upset and torn because then we felt like she was being drugged. They had her on an IV the whole week she was there and hooked up to monitors.She had a couple of really bad episodes while she was there where she felt like she couldn't breath, couldn't stop shaking and then she lost her speech which scared us to death. They ended up sedating her to calm her down. That one episode was on a Wednesday and then Thursday they gave her another medicine and it looked like she was having a bad reaction to it....her eyes were open but she couldn't move her body. We were freaking out thinking something was wrong. I ended up crashing and had to be carried away. All the result of everything going on of course.Everyone on the staff was very frustrated at not being able to help her. We felt like we were loosing our baby.We continued slowly getting through the end of the week and weekend dealing with all the symptoms still. Dr came to the conclusion that he felt she had got a bad virus. Although, he never dismissed the fact that it could be the Singulair but said unfortunately there was no test to look for that. He said parents usually know their kids better than anyone though.Dr. said when she was released she would have to go to inpatient rehab because of the anxiety issues and because she had not walked for so long (4-5 weeks).Dr came in Monday morning and said if she did not start drinking more she was about 2 days away from a feeding tube. During the day she started drinking more and when he came back in that night he said she had drank enough and he took her off the IV and said she could go home and we could do outpatient rehab. We were so happy to take her home even though we knew it would be hard. So the next day, Tuesday, was very hard and we had very serious episodes with not talking, loss of hearing, shaking, still not walking and passing out. We called the Dr. at the hospital and they said it was all due to the anxiety. We were praying over her so hard. Well Wednesday she woke up and said she had no more pain, she was hungry, and she started walking again. We got our baby back! And there is no doubt in our mind that it was that Singulair. We know that it was. From the time we took her off of Singular to the time she was totally restored was 9 days. It happened just like the all the other parents had described. As soon as it was out of her system she all of a sudden came back to us. We decided to not take her back to those pediatricians. I recently took her for a follow up with her Allergist,who was not aware of what had happened and after hearing the story said that he had experienced two of his patients being allergic to Singulair and they had hallucinations. They were pulled off the medicine immediately so their cases were not as extreme as hers. Please be cautious! This was a devastating experience! Please feel free to email us. I have documented our whole story if you would like it emailed to you.

Signulair has made me feel like I am having menopause (I'm only 32)--hot flashes; fevers that come and go; complete exhaustion. I didn't know what it was at first--and then the sleeplessness and nightmares hit--dreams that were graphically disturbing, that made me sad all the next day. This is a powerful drug, and I highly, highly recommend AGAINST taking it.

Our nearly 3 year-old has been on 4 mg for almost a year. 3 weeks after starting the medication she started waking up 3 times a night with horrible screaming. Pediatrician and allergist both said it wasn't the drug so I kept her on it and it has been awful (though it has controlled asthma and runny nose). I started noticing "difficulty sleeping" and "vivid dreams" added as side effects on official literature. I switched her pill to the am and noticed that she became outrageously aggerssive about 8 hours after taking the pill, which coincided with when her nightmares had been. Since I took my daughter off the med, the nightime wakenings mellowed, but didn't stop altogether. I think it will take some time to undo the bad waking habits that have formed. I encourage parents who notice aggression and nightmares to take their kids off this medication quickly, as my poor daughter now has to contend with asthma AND exhaustion. I am just furious b/c I feel like I unwittingly made her a guinea pig.