Micaela: Problems with multiple medicines (I) – Side effects (1)
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Micaela
Female
Age at interview: 38
Number of medicines: 21
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian
Micaela was on steroids and methotrexate for about ten years, which had several side effects and, because they suppressed the immune system, she picked up illnesses often, including some that were unusual in adults.
Well, muscle pain, joint pain. Obviously it suppresses your immune system, so I was picking up things that are very rarely seen in adults. For example, I picked up a lot of kids' diseases that I'd actually had when I was younger, or not. So, my body should have had a bit of a natural immunity to, but ... and one particular, apparently very rare thing I picked up was hand, foot and mouth disease, which is very, very painful, but apparently quite common in kids or more common in kids ... and frustrating things like that. And I had always had a disposition ... disposition? ... a propensity for mouth ulcers, which may have been because of Crohn's, but on steroids, another side effect of steroids is mouth ulcers, so I often had small ulcerations along the tongue and in my throat and obviously that's very painful and affects eating and things like that. Still didn't lose any weight. I put on a lot of weight. Still don't seem to have been able to shake that.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.