Itchy, Itchy, Everywhere!

That describes Mary about now... uh-oh! I did something that I never do on Monday. I changed 2 medications at one time rather than give each medicine a few days to watch for side effects. My justification of doing 2 at a time was that one was really just a higher dose of a previous medication, just a different brand name. The other one was a swap out of one medication for a different medication, but both were in the same family and very similar. Now she is itching up a storm and is progressively getting more itchy. I have checked and checked for a rash. There is nothing there. But she is scratching so hard she is making herself bleed in spots and has bruised her skin in other places.

So... now I am left wondering... is it an allergic reaction to one of the new medicines, or is it a withdrawal from the one we swapped out? As I am thinking through all of this I remember that the reason we even started the doxepin (one we stopped so we could switch to a different one) was because when she started taking lamictal she complained that the palms of her hands were really itchy. Doxepin has some antihistamine effect as well as being an old school anti-depressant. Kind of killing two birds with one stone. I wonder if maybe that had been keeping the itching at bay all these years??? Of course that leads to another question... is it the lamictal causing the itching?? Lamictal has been known to cause SJS and one of the first signs of that is a rash. No rash, so hopefully we are okay. But I do remember the doctor specifically telling us to not do anything that would cause an itchy rash (think walking through the woods or tall grass, changing laundry soap, changing bath soap, etc.) that could then morph into SJS. Could all her scratching now cause the SJS to come into play?

I did call our family doctor and we walked through all the medications that she is on and cross referenced them all to make sure that there were no dangerous interactions. He also reassured me that unless she starts to have trouble breathing or if we see a rash develop, we don't need to take a trip to the ER. So for tonight she is safely tucked into bed and will hopefully not scratch too much during the night. I will call the pdoc in the morning to see what she thinks and would recommend.

One thing is for sure... life is NEVER boring around here!