Antibiotics (Clarithromycin) causing severe brain fog/other symptoms?

[ankietyjoe]

I recently had a very bad chest infection and this will be my second course of antibiotics. With the first set (penicillin based) I had bad stomach ache and nausea, but no other symptoms.

Last week I was prescribed this newer antibiotic as the infection hadn't completely cleared up and since then I've started to develop some very unpleasant sensations :-

Extremely vivid dreams that seem to last the entire night.
Extreme brain fog
Invasive subconscious thoughts that appear more powerful than my conscious ones
Tight band around head
Visual jitter, feels like my brain cannot process what I see fast enough
Overall confusion

I've had slightly similar symptoms before with my GA, but never to this level.

I've been very ill and flat on my back for two weeks or more so I'm wondering if this is just a side effect of illness and immobility. My instinct is saying it's not though.

I've finished the course now so I'm hoping the side effects will just wear off. I was wondering if anybody else had experienced similar symptoms on similar medication. I also wonder if I'm more prone to these rare side effects as I already had a history of anxiety.

[ankietyjoe]

Well it turns out it probably was the AB's

I was suffering a mild bout of psychosis which after googling (I don't usually, but I had to do some research in this case) I found quite a few cases of this happening with this particular drug.

A couple of days after stopping it the frankly terrifying symptoms have started to disappear.

[Emphyrio]

Good to hear you got things sorted out. Psychosis from antibiotics sounds pretty scary to be honest!

[ankietyjoe]

Good to hear you got things sorted out. Psychosis from antibiotics sounds pretty scary to be honest!

Two hours or so not being able to comprehend spoken English was not fun I can tell you :wacko:

[harasgenster]

Two hours or so not being able to comprehend spoken English was not fun I can tell you :wacko:

Huh...I used to get that when I was under extreme stress. It's like everybody's speaking a foreign language. I could hear the sounds, but they meant nothing.

Never thought of that as being any kind of psychosis...

Glad you're feeling well, anyway. You know, the infection itself might have caused some of the symptoms. Often, I feel a bit confused when I have an infection, especially if it's been going on a while.

[ankietyjoe]

Well at first I thought it was just DR/DP, but it kept getting worse as I kept taking the antibiotics. One morning I woke up from a vivid dream at 5am so I switched the TV on and started watching the Olympics to take my mind off it, and the dream carried on. I could actually see the TV and the dream at the same time.

I did a bit of research and this particular antibiotic has a lot of stories of people experiencing pretty significant mental side effects.

I'm pretty pissed off at the GP for giving them to somebody with a history of mental illness, but on the other hand the infection I had was pretty severe too.

[pinkdove]

hi i have just finished a course of this ab for a chest infection and apart from feeling a bit tired i had no other problems i also take effexor daily for anxiety and depression

maybe i was just lucky but its the 2nd time i have taken them and i have been ok both times but i guess we all react differently

sounds scary tho x

[ankietyjoe]

Yeah it was a weird one alright.

I was trying not to pigeon hole or react to it, but 24 hours after I started taking it I knew something wasn't right.

I was in the car waiting to pick up my son from school, and I could hear a bird that I was convinced was in the car. I kept turning around and trying to see where it was. One of those 'uh oh' moments. I kind of knew the bird was outside, but my brain wouldn't stop looking. It might sound like a trivial experience, but it felt significantly different to anything I've ever experienced before, and I have successfully managed my anxiety for the last 6-12 months so my intuition was telling me it was something external causing it.

In any case it pretty much stopped within 24 hours of me finishing the tablets so if nothing else this thread my reassure anybody else that experiences something similar with this medication in the future.