Hi All: I'm new to this Forum and was inspired by Rekka's success with the Telephone Aversion question. : )

I apparently have been allergic or sensitive to some drugs my entire life. This just became a big issue when I was treated for breast cancer. At that time, I knew I was allergic to penicillin, but did not know I had ADD (just knew I was different!), and had never really been ill, so this was my first big experience with prescription drugs. Five years later, I'm recovering from a real horror story - I had bad reaction after bad reaction, then they'd give me something else to treat the next reaction, and on and on. Within a year or so, I had what they thought might be rheumatoid arthritis, could barely walk or type at my computer, and my brain - well, I couldn't describe what was going on with it, but I learned later that my executive function was knocked out. Specialist after specialist didn't know what was wrong with me. One doctor finally said that I have "idiosyncratic reactions" to drugs, which was a good description of what was going on. I've done a little reading on this, but am not sure it is connected to ADD, but my ADD was finally diagnosed when one smart doctor finally sent me to a neuropsychologist for testing because I hadn't slept in months. They decided I'd had ADD my whole life, but that all this drug therapy had knocked out all my coping mechanisms, and worsened the ADD. I started taking Adderall, and two days later I was sleeping like a log. My depressions are gone, and I hope to work my way back off the Adderall once I catch up on sleep.

I've always been sensitive to chemical smells like perfume, bath soap, cleaning products, laundry softener - everything has to be unscented. Someone wearing strong cologne can give me a migraine headache for hours. My skin is very sensitive to perfumes in soaps and cosmetics - they either burn or cause itching.

The only other health condition I have is low thyroid function, and in addition to replacement thyroid hormone, which was working okay but not great, my doctor recently put me on extra iodine and told me to avoid fluoride in drinking water.

Sorry for the long story, but I was hoping to be able to link some or all of this and would appreciate hearing from anyone with similar experiences or who has any explanations. BTW, thankfully, my cancer was totally removed by surgery - lymph nodes were clean - so if I ever run into that situation again - NO CHEMO OR FOLLOW UP MEDS!

Thanks - -Shannon

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