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As I am preparing to go to OMG SYRIA (about which, seriously, I will post in more detail soon), today I picked up my necessary medications to bring, including anti-malarias.
See, the thing is, every single person I know who has gone on anti-malarias has had bad reactions to them, in each case severe enough to stop taking them. Generally the stories I've heard have been about psychological reactions- severe paranoia, mood swings, vivid nightmares, etc. But I also know a girl who had been taking them for about a month when she had a severe physical reaction to them caused by an overdose (she's a very petite woman, and so had probably been taking much more than she needed for her height/weight, since they give everyone the same amount. This aspect of the story does not comfort me at all, since I am also fairly small, and tend to react strongly to painkillers- though I have no idea if that's a parallel I can extend to something like anti-malarias). Anyway, she stopped taking them, since once you have that sort of reaction you will have it again if you ever try to take the same medicine, but stayed at the project she was on, and then caught malaria. Fun times!
I am already paranoid about the side-effects of medicines, so now I'm very worried. On the other hand, of course I do not want to catch malaria. Though, in truth, it's not really that common in Northern Syria.
Does anyone know anything about anti-malarias? If I do something like take them every other week instead of once a week, or take a half-dose each time instead, will that work, or will that just be harder on my body? I've got chloroquine, if it makes a difference. Alternately, does anyone have stories of time when anti-malarias did not go horribly wrong? I will be reassured by hearing of people who took them without problems.
See, the thing is, every single person I know who has gone on anti-malarias has had bad reactions to them, in each case severe enough to stop taking them. Generally the stories I've heard have been about psychological reactions- severe paranoia, mood swings, vivid nightmares, etc. But I also know a girl who had been taking them for about a month when she had a severe physical reaction to them caused by an overdose (she's a very petite woman, and so had probably been taking much more than she needed for her height/weight, since they give everyone the same amount. This aspect of the story does not comfort me at all, since I am also fairly small, and tend to react strongly to painkillers- though I have no idea if that's a parallel I can extend to something like anti-malarias). Anyway, she stopped taking them, since once you have that sort of reaction you will have it again if you ever try to take the same medicine, but stayed at the project she was on, and then caught malaria. Fun times!
I am already paranoid about the side-effects of medicines, so now I'm very worried. On the other hand, of course I do not want to catch malaria. Though, in truth, it's not really that common in Northern Syria.
Does anyone know anything about anti-malarias? If I do something like take them every other week instead of once a week, or take a half-dose each time instead, will that work, or will that just be harder on my body? I've got chloroquine, if it makes a difference. Alternately, does anyone have stories of time when anti-malarias did not go horribly wrong? I will be reassured by hearing of people who took them without problems.
