Accidentally took dexamethasone, need help

[Bergkamp]

Hi all,

I wanted to take Domperidone but due to a mix-up the domperidone container had 2 dexamethasone pills in it. I took both thinking it was domperidone and it triggered a major reaction. I went from housebound, up all day, able to do walks and chores to fully bedbound, not even able to lift my head from the pillow within hours. My heart rate is consistently above 100, I haven’t eaten and won’t sleep a minute tonight. My body feels like it’s on fire, like I’ve taken every upper drug on the planet. Literally feel the cortisol rushing through my veins.

Anyone with a suggestion of how to die regulate the cortisol quickly? Anyone with a clue how long this will take.

thank you from a desperate Dutchman

 

[Gingergrrl]

What is the dose of the Dexamethasone? Is the Dex your prescription that you have taken before (and do you take a steroid on a regular basis)? Endocrine issues are so complex (at least for me) that I would not want to steer you wrong!

My first thought was what would bring me symptom relief if I was in your shoes and my first thought was a beta blocker and Benadryl (but this is not medical advice and I do NOT know if this would be right for you). Do you have a doctor that you can check with?

 

[Bergkamp]

Thanks for your quick reply!

I don’t take any steroids (except nasal spray but that is a negligible dose). The dex is my mom’s prescription from 2 years ago. She accidentally put those pills in the wrong container. I don’t exactly know how high the dose was, because the 2 pills I took were the last ones. I’ll ask my mom if she knows more.

thanks for the advice re beta blockers! I take 40mg propranolol per day and should probably up that to 50 right now. Benadryl is a good shout, I don’t know if I have that but I do have something similar (doxylamine succinate). My GP is on holiday unfortunately…

 

[Booble]

How are you feeling now?

 

[Booble]

Be careful about making things worse by trying to self-correct with something else....
If you are still feeling off you should contact any health facility even if your GP is out of town or poison control line if you have one.

 

[Bergkamp]

How are you feeling now?

Still mostly the same although a tiny tiny bit better. It’s waning off very slowly, I read that the half life of Dexamethasone is 36-72 hours.

 

[Bergkamp]

Be careful about making things worse by trying to self-correct with something else....
If you are still feeling off you should contact any health facility even if your GP is out of town or poison control line if you have one.

Thanks that is good advice. On top of all this my mom has covid and she now has to take care of me full-time so let’s see how that goes…

 

[Booble]

Checking in to see how you (and your mom) are doing.....keep us posted.
Hope things are settling down inside you.

 

[Bergkamp]

Thanks for checking in! My mom is doing well, she will most likely be corona free tomorrow. I will still need to wait a few days to be sure she hasn’t infected me which I’m kinda nervous about. My body has luckily calmed down a bit, heart rate finally approaching normal - but damage has definitely been done.

 

[Booble]

Good to hear.
The heart rate is the one big risk I think with the "overdose."
Luckily hearts are.....well....hearty.... (Is that where that word comes from?)....and can take a lot.
Time should heal.

Good luck on not catching the bug!

 

[Bergkamp]

Thanks for your interest and support!

 

[Gingergrrl]

I don’t take any steroids (except nasal spray but that is a negligible dose). The dex is my mom’s prescription from 2 years ago. She accidentally put those pills in the wrong container. I don’t exactly know how high the dose was, because the 2 pills I took were the last ones. I’ll ask my mom if she knows more.

Thanks for explaining and I had wondered from your initial post (in my reply last night) if it was your own Dex prescription and that you accidentally took two pills vs. one or that it was not your prescription and you do not take a steroid at all for adrenal insufficiency or inflammation (or any other reason).

Is it possible for you and your mom to keep your prescription bottles completely separate (even in two different rooms) so there will never be confusion of her putting her pills into your bottle? Did you ever find out from her the dosage of the dexamethasone pills?

I hope that you will continue to recover and can reach your doctor (or another doctor covering for him/her)? I also hope that your mom feels better soon from Covid.

 

[Bergkamp]

There is this medication I take called domperidone - my mom used to take it too and she said she had some old ones left when I had finished mine. That was already some time ago but I still had that container. This will definitely never happen again haha. I think my mom said it was only a small dosage, 0.4mg maybe? My GP is out for the week, I did talk to her colleague but he doesn’t know about my ME situation so he was not very supportive.

I’m mostly worried about now, I feel worse than ever even though just 2 days ago I was out BBQing in the sun with my parents. I can only lie flat on my bed and stare at the ceiling all day, my POTS is horrible. I can only hope this just a temporary crash and it will revert soon.

 

[Booble]

Your body just went through hell. Think about it like a little war zone you were stuck in for a short time.
Give yourself a week and half without worrying about it. Expect to feel weird and screwy during this time.

 

[Bergkamp]

Thanks a lot @Booble , that’s actually really helpful advice

 

[vision blue]

Thanks for your quick reply!

I don’t take any steroids (except nasal spray but that is a negligible dose). The dex is my mom’s prescription from 2 years ago. She accidentally put those pills in the wrong container. I don’t exactly know how high the dose was, because the 2 pills I took were the last ones. I’ll ask my mom if she knows more.

thanks for the advice re beta blockers! I take 40mg propranolol per day and should probably up that to 50 right now. Benadryl is a good shout, I don’t know if I have that but I do have something similar (doxylamine succinate). My GP is on holiday unfortunately…

I wouldnt want to be adding any amines to that brew! (Doxlamine) Hows your bp? Did thst go up like the hr or did it go down?

Any plans for how to handle any rebound?

Hopefully you will return to how you were before

 

[Bergkamp]

I wouldnt want to be adding any amines to that brew! (Doxlamine) Hows your bp? Did thst go up like the hr or did it go down?

Any plans for how to handle any rebound?

Hopefully you will return to how you were before

Thanks that’s helpful advice re the amine. What’s the interaction there? Just measured my body, it’s 132/85 so quite normal. During the initial rush it was higher, 140/95 or something.

if I rebound I have to make sure that I don’t become excited too quickly and want to go back to my old level too quickly I guess. But at this point I’m just hoping for any rebound at all to be honest

Any advice/motivation is more than welcome, going through the toughest time of my life right now

 

[Booble]

I think you are going to be OK.
They use one time big doses of steroids for various things.
While we can look at yours as an "overdose" because it wasn't intended, two pills of a small dosage shouldn't be something for long term consequences.

Right now you are feeling it because not only is your body ridding itself of the steroid, but also of all the massive amount of adrenaline you have flowing around. It takes awhile for that to dissipate and for your adrenals to stop sending more troops in.

The biggest problem with steroids is long term use not one hit.

Good luck and take care....remember -- give yourself a week and half before you worry too much.

 

[Bergkamp]

Thanks so much for your reassurance @Booble . I’m going to keep your post open on my phone so that I can read it when I start to worry too much.

You seem pretty knowledgeable about this issue. Any idea why the corticosteroids worsened my POTS and especially my OI so much? What’s the mechanism there?

 

[vision blue]

Thanks that’s helpful advice re the amine. What’s the interaction there? Just measured my body, it’s 132/85 so quite normal. During the initial rush it was higher, 140/95 or something.

if I rebound I have to make sure that I don’t become excited too quickly and want to go back to my old level too quickly I guess. But at this point I’m just hoping for any rebound at all to be honest

Any advice/motivation is more than welcome, going through the toughest time of my life right now

The connection with the amines is that they can raise blood pressure via trace amine receptors and by causing a norepinerphine (nor adreniline) dump which will not only raise bp but also give you yet more of a crazed overstimulated state.
Along same linees, just in case, avoid aged foods and glutamates to cause yet more overstimuation, but likely you are not a responder.

Remind yourself also that the freakout is part of the reaction to the med! sudden surges 0f this system produce panic-attack like symptoms. So that will fade too- or at least fade back to what it was before

have you tried seeing if there are any useful tidbits in the overdose section of drug descriptins? While yours was NOT an overdose, there could be useful stuff like if they give anythgin to counteract it or just give fluids or whatever support.

I wonder if there's some way you can use this to your advantage - like carefully noting and recording how it affects each of your symptomns?

i think your question about how it affects pots is a very interesting one - just even the the fact that it does i think is interesting info for all of us as well as you. So symptathetic overload in the form of too much cortosone is enhancing your orthostatic sensitivity. I'm not sure i know the mechanism. we now sympatheic overload seems to go with the pots, but hard to tell directions of causility.

was about to suggest some tricks for turning off adrenal stimulatio- but actually you don't need that cause its the meds doing the stimulationg . (so things like certain deep breathing to turn on the parasympathetic system- maybe it's worth atry- be careful- don't give yourself an arhythmmia or anything- but the types of breathing patterns- i forge the number of seconds in and holding etc- there are different ones. Try humming some songs so that you feel it deep in your chest. that can also turn on parasympathetic nervous system via vagus nerve

mostly you just need to wait til it flushes out. will water help? again, don't know, check the "overdose" section as i meant above (be careful here too- don't do anything drastic or you could give yourself something new!C)

maybe try distracting yourself til the damn thing finally fades too

we are all here, so keep just checking in.