This troper once took various tablets for different things, one of which had the side effect of ''causing what i was trying to be rid of''.

They ''all'' have side-effects like those.

I have here a leaflet for one SSRI which lists "Suicide-related ''events''" as a side-effect, which is worryingly non-specific.

When something bad happens to someone in a study who is taking medication, it is called an adverse event. Intentional harm related events are available in ICD 10 Codes under X60-X84, covering everything from Intentional self-poisoning by and exposure to nonopioid analgesics, antipyretics and antirheumatics, to Intentional self-harm by unspecified means. Incidentally, the ICD lists are a great way of finding medical conditions which could go in a fake side-effect list, like atrophy of prostate (N42.2)

This one can attest that they're not making the suicidal thoughts thing up. Is it bad that I stopped taking drugs because the thoughts I had ''scared me away from them''?

This troper owns a copy of ''Selling It'', a collection of the ''Consumer Reports'' columns, which documents a case of the 'Do not operate heavy machinery' warning on pills prescribed by the ''vet''. "We had no idea what the cat was up to when he felt good!"

The sleep aid Ambien lists "sleep-eating" as one of its side effects. Not listed, but known to have happened to at least one person each, are sleep-painting and sleep-sex.

Not to mention sleep mowing the lawn and sleep driving to a booty call to cheat on your wife.

This editor knew a classmate who took this medicine and ended up eating everything in his fridge, and waking up on his ''front porch'' in his boxers.

This editor took Ambien for a long while and only stopped when my body got so adjusted to it that it didn't work any more. I heard some ''funny'' stories in college on mornings after I'd taken one. The best was probably "Yeah, you came into my room, accused me of being snack food, and then fell down". From personal experience, the cause is pretty much that the pills are gonna induce a dreaming state in you no matter what, and if you don't entirely fall asleep first, well...

While in the Army this troper knew a fellow soldier who took Ambien and combined it with alcohol. In a drug induced haze this individual ignored the presence of seven other people in a room, put a pornographic DVD in his DVD player, and started beating off in front of them. Yeah, he never did hear the end of that one...

There's also been several instances of people driving in their sleep while on Ambien. YIKES!

This troper's ex-wife took Ambien for a while. This resulted in such behaviours as steadily drinking a cup of tea whilst snoring, talking to the liquid crystals in the computer screen, and running straight up to a WoW boss before everyone was ready, and saying into Teamspeak, "Hi! We're here to kill you now!"

This troper's aunt took Ambien CR; the most interesting thing she did was go around her house lighting candles. She's convinced the "CR" stands for "can't remember."

This troper, seeing as he was having problems sleeping around that time, took a sleep aid one night to see if maybe it'd help. When I woke up the next morning, I was wearing my sister's favorite dress for some reason. After that, I never did take any kind of sleep aid again.

This troper has this weird commanding officer. After ingesting some sort of supplement, he claimed he saw a bright, irregularly moving, orange object in the sky, and then was bathed in a white light. He passed out, and when he woke up, he was home. I dunno what happened to him.

This troper had to take anti-pain drugs after some operations on her back. One of the side effects was irrepressible sexual urges. It seems that pain reception and social inhibition are somewhat related. She quickly asked for a change of medicines.

This troper's father for years had some sort of fungus growing under his toenails. Unsightly, but ultimately harmless. The reason he had it for years was because the only drug available to treat it stood a good chance of causing permanent kidney damage. The doctor apparently recommended it in perfect seriousness.

Geeze. Daily coatings of Vicks Vapo-rub (spelling?) will get rid of a toenail fungus in something like a year. You wonder about the morals and/or intelligence of some medical professionals.

This troper's mother once caught a nasty case of stomach flu, and the doctor prescribed her a drug with side effects that included visual and auditory hallucinations. She stopped using it after a potted plant began to explain its plans for world domination.

Escitalopram treats depression, but has a side effect of attention problems. Taking it, I was later prescribed methylphenidate as well, which treats attention problems but has a side effect of depression.

This Troper had to stop taking a certain acne medication because it turned bits of her skin blue.

Would that be Tetracycline? This Troper was warned that excessive exposure to sunlight while using it would turn his skin purple. It never happened, much to my disappointment.

This troper used to play with this trope in his job as a bank teller. "Ask your banker if upgraded checking is right for you. Side effects include free stuff, increased savings account balance, and occasional drowsiness. If increased wealth continues, consult an investment guy." The branch manager hated me for going off script, but it worked.

This troper's beloved Lamictal is infamous for a side effect of, I kid you not, deadly ''rash''.

Got it. I got better.

This troper has the unfortunate job of working for a company that sells mail-order prescriptions. One day he took an order for Muse, an ED drug, taken by injection. In the appropriate place. So yeah...

This Troper recommends anyone who finds him or herself in law school to take a class in Products Liability. You will have more of these stories than you ever wanted to know existed.

My mood stabilizers made my mood swings FAR FAR FAR WORSE.

They also gave me the most realistic dreams of my life, including one where I lived a FULL WEEK of a potential future timeline, which included going to sleep and waking up, and all five senses worked COMPLETELY, not to mention reading newspapers and such. When I actually woke up, I was amazed to see that that was only in an EIGHT HOUR sleep...

This troper once had a blog (technically, I still have it, but I never write on it anymore because no one ever paid it any attention) on which he wrote a parody of television commercials like this trope.

This troper's father used to go on a health craze every so often, bringing home a random vitamin or pill and declare that the whole family has to take it, then forgetting about it after a month. One night after he had brought home a new one, I found myself giggling for no reason that evening for a bit. No big deal. The following day in the middle of history class, I just started giggling again -- a giggling fit that lasted OVER AN HOUR before it finally subsided. I never let my dad give me random stuff again.

Apparently caffeine can cause giggling that lasts at least an hour and a half. This troper had a classmate who had Redbull in class, (part of an English project actually, but that's a story for another page, probably) and unfortunately this troper shared the next class with him. They really need warnings on those cans. Also, this troper knows someone who had a heart attack from too many Rock Stars.

This troper loves coming up with ridiculous side effects, including: Lack of hair loss, sliminess, lack of nipple awareness, flights of fancy, loose gas caps, inability to recall the lyrics to "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", squeaky joints, inadequate uvula, flat knuckles, hamfistedness, painted retinas, and bouts of frantic toenail clipping.

This troper has experimented with many different kinds of pain meds from Promethazine to every kind ending in -dol, {except that one for treatment of his illnesses, many of which cause numbness, constant spacing out, and an inability to sit still. Then again, there's a pretty good chance that I do most of those things on my good days, especially after a few cups of coffee. ^_^

This troper does not recall any warning with his prozac that said, "May ultimately worsen depression to the point where the user is actually suicidal". Needless to say, I'm not on prozac any more.

It seems to happen with other anti-depressants. My parents once asked me to search about a medicine my father was taking (to relieve mood swings, that was one of the side effects from ANOTHER medicine - for chronical headache) and actually the anti-depressive also caused mostly depression-related side effects. Including suicidal tendencies.

How old are you? Because it's pretty well known that anti-depressants can actually worsen depression in non-adults. They even have warnings on them saying you shouldn't take it if you're a child/teenager.

More to the point, how old ''were'' you when you were on it, and were the above side effects known at the time?

I was sixteen, five months off being seventeen, at the time (November 2009) and the potential side effects were known as my mother asked the doctor about the suicide risk and the doctor said that it shouldn't be a problem.

A relative of ours was suffering crippling pains, to the point where she couldn't sleep at night, for which she was taking Vicodin. She showed us the papers that were given to her along with a prescription for Naproxen. I don't remember what the side effects were (I'm pretty sure gastrointestinal bleeding was one of them), however, the paper must have had seven separate conditions under which you should quit taking it immediately and call somebody, neither of which appeared the least bit pleasant. She ultimately decided that the risks outweighed the good. "Common side effects include dying in your sleep" were my exact words

Parodied in an over the top manner here. The whole thing is just ridiculous, but it was made in protest of the name Unova

This troper has adverse reactions to amoxicillin, of all things. If you read the side effects carefully, they include anxiety, mental changes and unclear thinking, which this troper had in spades. As if being sick isn't bad enough, the paranoia is enough to make you truly miserable.

This troper recently saw a commercial for the stop-smoking drug Chantix. Two of the side effects given were SUICIDAL THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS! F*ck, I'd just keep smoking, or at least get some Nicorette.

It's not uncommon for me to see, in a two minute commercial whose visuals consist soleley of a pair of people walking on a beach on a cloudy day, fifteen seconds of how great the product is, one minute and thirty about the side effects, then a quote from one of the people in the visuals about how GREAT the product has been for them. Usually the side effects are, in fact, worse than the thing being treated.

A friend was telling this troper about an experience where she took a cold medication with the seemingly conflicting side effects of "hyperactivity" and "drowsiness." She described it as getting the urge to run around before falling asleep after ten minutes. She woke up with a headache and a strong conviction to read labels of medicines.