We all have a drug cabinet or box, containing painkillers, prescription medications or whatever. Do you know that most medications have side effects? Let us explore some of the common drugs we usually use and the likely side effects.
ASPIRIN
Blood-thinning medications—aspirin being the most common—can make random bruises appear on your body.
PENICILLIN
Penicillin is widely revered as the drug that heralded in the age of modern medicine. But what’s not known is that it can take us back to the era of herbal drugs and remedies; the stuff can cause patients to experience—“hear, see, and feel”—things that aren’t real.
IBUPROFEN
In incredibly rare cases—about five out of every million users—ibuprofen, the magical headache and inflammation cure-all, can cause Stevens Johnsons Syndrome (SJS). This condition causes blistering over the body. Patients who continue to ingest ibuprofen after being diagnosed with SJS can go on to develop something called toxic epidermal necrolysis, which causes third-degree burns all over the body—and is fatal in 30 percent of cases.
VIAGRA
You’ve heard it a million times: “Please consult with a doctor if you have an erection that lasts more than four hours.” But what does it actually mean? A four-hour long erection, no matter how awesome that may sound, is a sign of priapism. In short, priapism (named after the Greek god of male fertility, Priapus, who was known for his permanent erection) means your penis’s blood vessels refuse to relax. In super, super extreme cases, the penis will need to be amputated.
NAPROXEN
Naproxen, a leading migraine medication and one of the most highly effective non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, can give you blue lips and fingernails.
EYE DROPS
We’re not really sure how this happens from a physiological standpoint, but Travoprost—a common eye drop for itchiness, pinkeye, and the like—has been linked to indigestion.
OFLOXACIN
Ofloxacin, the most common of ear infection, or “swimmers ear,” drugs, has a strange side effect: It can cause genital itching.
DEXTAMETHORPHAN
If you ingest too much dextromethorphan—that’s scientific term for “cough syrup”—you’ll experience some fairly powerful hallucinations. Allegedly, these hallucinations come with temporary euphoria. Keep your kids away.
ANESTHESIA
To this day, despite having used the stuff for nearly two centuries, doctors still don’t fully know how anesthesia works. In particular, the medical community doesn’t have a full understanding of the side effects. But according to a report in Scientific American, patients can suffer spurts of delirium, confusion, and memory loss entire years after being put under.
TESTOSTERONE
Testosterone, the increasingly popular drug that’s supposed to make you stratospherically manlier, has the most ironic of side effects: It depletes your sperm count.
PREDNISONE
According to the Mayo Clinic, Prednisone, a common steroidal medication used to treat everything from asthma to gout to ulcerative colitis, can cause a decrease in height.
PROZAC
In one of the strangest side effects out there—doctors don’t entirely know why it occurs—prozac can give you a near unquenchable level of thirst.
THE FLU SHOT
In rare cases, the flu shot—something, for the record, all of us should get every single year—can cause hives. According to the CDC, if you break out in hives after getting the shot, this means you’re severely allergic to that particular year’s batch, and should seek medical attention immediately.
