I started plaquenil again last night, and have an intense headache (migraine?) that extends down my upper back and into my shoulders.
Or maybe the pain is in my back/shoulders extending to my head? Either way, it's bad.
The headache seems more right-sided, as is usual for me. I have a lot of right-sided involvement.
Looking back over my notes, this headache was present last time I started plaquenil, and never really went away ( I was on it less than a month, last time).
Could this be a plaquenil herx, or is this more of a side effect of plaquenil?
I've also started Biaxin recently and have been having one heck of a nasty herx, but I thought it had started to subside before I added the plaquenil.
Do I plow through this and keep going, or back off a little and give it a few days to subside? What would you do?
Owwwwie, Cactus
Posted by bettyg (Member # 6147) on :
up for answers from the wisdom of this experienced group! Posted by Oz (Member # 2905) on :
I had a similiar experience a couple weeks ago. I was prescibed plaquenil with the doxy I had been taking for about a week. As noted as a possible side effect from plaq, my vision went funny and I had a migrainious episode with the accompaning head ache and vomitting. I attributed it to the plaquenil and stopped taking it. I have been taking doxy 200 mg BID and feel my lyme symptoms (basically confined to me knee joint) are in are in check.
Posted by cactus (Member # 7347) on :
Thanks for the bump, Betty!
Oz, thanks for sharing your plaq experience. And what great news that your symptoms are mostly in check now.
I'm glad you mentioned the vision issue - while I know that can be an issue with plaq, I attributed the vision problems to the migraine-type headache.
Now I wonder.
Stopped the plaq, and after 24 hours, the killer headache/vision problems began to subside.
Whether it was due to herx or side effect, I don't know, but I'm reluctant to take chances with the vision issue. Will mention this to my LLMD.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)