Drug Side Effects?

[Walking After Midnight]

Has anyone ever heard of having problems swallowing for any reason because of meds they are on?

I'm having difficulty swallowing, plus I have a sort of constant nagging pain in my throat. I've noticed that usually if I'm just eating food, I'm ok most of the time, not always, but most of the time. If I try to swallow pills, or drink something, no matter what it is, it just doesn't want to go down. AND there's a lot of pain at times...sometimes making me get up from the dinner table to stand up, or move around to try and ease the pain.
A little more than a year ago, I had an Endoscopy (sp?) done for this same problem and the Dr. that did it said everything looked fine. But the problem is NOT getting better, in fact it seems to be getting worse.

I know I'm somewhat allergic to milk...my throat just wants to close up everytime I try and swallow milk. Plus my stomach usually lets me know I'm not supposed to be drinking Milk or eating Ice Cream.
I know I'm rambling, I'm having a hard time writing what I want to say.

I've been taking Hydrocodone for about a year now. I don't know if this has anything to do with anything or not. I will say, I was having trouble swallowing...although only occasionally...before I started taking Hydrocodone. On top of the swallowing problem, I'm not feeling very well. It's kind of like nausea but more like just a nagging, crappy feeling and I don't want to eat. I don't want to eat at times, and other times it feels like I'm so hungry it's painful. I know Hydrocodone has been giving me headaches when I take it more frequently. I'm wondering if I'm just sort of developing an allergy to Hydrocodone as time goes by. I've been really having constant nagging pain in my throat, plus at night mostly I've been getting sort of what feels like Hot Pipes, plus I'm belching a lot when I move around. Whether the belching is related to the swallowing problem, I'm not sure. I'm going to see my family Dr. this week if I can get in, but I thought maybe if someone else has had this problem I'd know what direction to go. The reason I'm wondering if it's tied to Hydrocodone, is this...a few times, on particularly rough RLS days, I've taken more than my allowed Two 750 ES tablets a day...three or four. And it seems the next few days I feel TERRIBLE.

I'm just trying to narrow this down. Anyone know if it could be the drugs causing this or causing the symptoms to be worse? I'm also taking Inderal and Lyrica.

Thanks.
Randy

[jan3213]

WAM

Have you asked your pharmacist about this? I took Sulfa for years when I had recurrent bladder infections. One day, I got a new prescription for Sulfa and it felt like fire going down my throat when I swallowed the pill. We are at a dinner and a friend of ours, who happened to be a pharacist, said that it sounded like I had developed an allergy to Sulfa. He said this could happen even if you've been taking the same prescription for a long time. All of a sudden, your body just screams "Stop! I don't want that anymore."

I don't know if that's what's doing on, but it would be worth a try anyway.

Good luck and let us know what you find out. And, be careful!!!

Jan

[becat]

Hi Randy,
I honestly could not tell you what the problem is, but yes one to seek an answer to. If the muscles in your Upper GI tract are not working well it can cause many problems.
I think I can safely say that pain killers deaden our systems as a whole. I find I don't eat much either. However, I never have really. The belching is your stomach telling you that it's working on something hard to digest. Same thing if it goes the other way ( sorry every one). However, the meds slow that down so everything might be slower.
When it comes to your meds, you need to look for anything that mentions muscle weakness or muscles pain. Are you on a cholesteral (sp?) medication? Some have a bad rep for muscle pain.
Please let us know how it goes, and know that I got you in the moon and in my prayers.
Hugs Bro!
Lynard

[ViewsAskew]

Yeah, sounds like a trip to your pharmacist and then your doc may be in order. Trouble swallowing can be related to thyroid problems, too, but I'm sure there are many other things. Allergy-like symptoms, I would think, would be close to when the meds start working and then would decrease as it decreased in your system. Do you have it all the time? Even, say, hours after you took a dose of hydrocodone?

Sorry you are having trouble.

[brandy]

I haven't had any trouble with swallowing, but I can imagine it is an uncomfortable, scary feeling. Let us know what the doctor says. I don't have any advice. I just want you to know that I care and am thinking of you.

[FidgetBoy]

Hiya Randy- sorry you're having a tough go of it. There are medications that can cause pain upon swallowing or make you nauseated. However, usually pain when swallowing is a sign for you to go back and get your throat and stomach looked at again. The symptoms you are describing sound suspiously like an esophageal or upper stomach ulcer. Sometimes pills can get stuck in your throat and literally burn a small ulcer into your esophagus. The nausea you are describing can be induced by an ulcer OR from taking narcotics. In any case- it's imperative for you to get a scope down your throat again to make sure you don't have something else going on.

[Neco]

Hi,

I only experienced the distinct denseation that I absolutely couldn't swallow after a rather nasty binge of tramadol/percocet (naughty me got a wake up call that night).. However I'm not convinced that it wasn't a sematic response either, since I tend to read about crap like that, that happens.

I've never given it much thought myself, but I was diagnosed with IBS-D (guess what the D stands for) / lactose intolerance a couple months after I started taking hydrocodone regularly.

I can't say for sure it wasn't something waiting to be triggered (I had bad food and never been the same since, been through antibiotics etc). But since you mention being allergic to milk and such, I thought I would mention that a common binder in a lot of pills is lactose, and also hydrocodone and other narcotics also function as cough supressants (usually its why you find codeine in prescription cough syrups) so that may be contributing to your problem as well.

Hope this info helps you out some

[tazzer]

maybe you've developed another food allergy? for some reason in my mid 20's i developed an allergy to seafood, if i eat it my mouth feels like someone took a blow torch to it and burned off the skin, and it makes me lightheaded. go figure! well there's my 2cents. hope you find out whats going on Are.

dee

[BeanieLee]

I know that most opioids, if not all, slow down smooth muscle movement in the gastrointestinal system, causing constipation and tummy problems. Maybe these symptoms are due to the hydrocodone's effect on the smooth muscle in your GI and how everything is flowing, or not flowing, in there.

[Walking After Midnight]

Thanks everybody.
Things to think about.

Seeing the Dr. on Thursday. So maybe he'll have some thoughts. More likely, he'll probably have a million tests for me.