the four right chords can make me cry

Phew!

Finally handed in my Islam essay yesterday, immense relief! I'm not proud of my work at all, rather shoddy, I wouldnt think it worth my time if I were the prof. Normally I'd be kinda upset with turning in such blah work, but the relief of having gotten it over and done with is overwhelming! The essay was hanging over me like a dread cloud all week. I'd turn on my computer, stare blankly at the screen, that | thing blinking away, write a line, get distracted by some research on the net, delete the line, write another line and so on. A futile, repetitive, tedious, time-consuming, exceedingly painful, non-productive cycle. But it's finally over!

Still got ALOT of work to do, work that I was supposed to do this week but put off in light of the urgent deadline. Gonna fail organic chem, they went through the answers and i like got everything wrong, even the bits i thought were ok. SIGH.

But I had a rather good day today, and i've had so many things to blog about but just no time that today youre gonna get some verblog diarrhea. (is that how you spell it? you know my spelling is bad...)

When I went for my pre-thailand medical checkup, they asked me if I had a history of mental illness before prescribing malaria pills. Rather puzzled me. So I went to check the pills up on the net, and they turn out to have NASTY side effects.

Firstly, what it is, as gleaned from the back of the box:
1 compr. = 250mg mefloquin
sub forma 274,09 mg mefloquin.
hydrochloric.

(no idea what it means. go ask a pharmacist, i'm just a year one life science student! a know-nothing in the scientific world! But here are some smart people doing research...)

Björkman, A. 1989. Acute psychosis following mefloquine prophylaxis. Lancet 2(8667):865

Patchen, L.C., et al. 1989. Neurologic reactions after a theraputic dose of mefloquine. New England Medical Journal 321(20):1415-1416.

Rodor, F., et al. 1990. [Recurrent psychiatric manifestations during malaria prevention with mefloquine. A case report] (in French). Therapie 45(5):433-434.
ABSTRACT: The authors report the case of a 22 years old woman without psychiatric antecedent who started a prophylaxis with mefloquine for a journey in a chloroquino resistant area. The first tablet induced an acute psychiatric syndrome which lasted five days; the second tablet induced the recidive of the psychiatric data and a suicide attempt by drowning.

Weinke, T., et al. 1991. Neuropsychiatric side effects after the use of mefloquine. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 45(1):86-91.
ABSTRACT: This study describes neuropsychiatric side effects in patients after treatment with mefloquine. Reactions consisted mainly of seizures, acute psychoses, anxiety neurosis, and major disturbances of sleep-wake rhythm. Side effects occurred after both therapeutic and prophylactic intake and were graded from moderate to severe. In a risk analysis of neuropsychiatric side effects in Germany, it is estimated that one of 8,000 mefloquine users suffers from such reactions. The incidence calculation revealed that one of 215 therapeutic users had reactions, compared with one of 13,000 in the prophylaxis group, making the risk of neuropsychiatric reactions after mefloquine treatment 60 times higher than after prophylaxis. Therefore, certain limitations for malaria prophylaxis and treatment with mefloquine are recommended.

Sowumi, A. 1994. Acute psychosis after mefloquine: a case report. East Afrian Medical Journal 71(12):818-819.
ABSTRACT: A self-limiting psychosis characterized by visual and auditory hallucinations and isomnia occurred in a 17-year old male after mefloquine administration for presumed chloroquine resistant falciparum malaria. The attending physician failed to recognise the association between mefloquine and psychosis.

Clarke, Paul. 1996. Temporarily disabling neuropsychiatric side effects after taking the anti-malarial drug mefloquine (lariam) are more common than previously thought. British Medical Journal 313(7056), 31 August 1996.

Watt-Smith, S., et al. 2001. Mefloquine-induced trigeminal sensory neuropathy. Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology, Oral Radiology, and Endodontics 92(2):163-165.
ABSTRACT: Trigeminal sensory neuropathy is an important finding, often indicative of trauma but sometimes related to neoplasia, infections, demyelinating conditions, connective tissue disorders, other disorders, or, occasionally, drugs. This paper reports on a patient with sudden-onset trigeminal sensory neuropathy of the lip that proved to be drug-induced, secondary to the antimalarial drug mefloquine. This appears to be the first report of sensory impairment in the orofacial region from exposure to mefloquine.

Dow, G.S., T.H. Hudson, M. Vahey, and M.L. Koenig. 2003. The acute neurotoxicity of mefloquine may be mediated through a disruption of calcium homeostasis and ER function in vitro. Malaria Journal 2 (1):14.
ABSTRACT CONCLUSIONS: Mefloquine was found to disrupt neuronal calcium homeostasis and induce an ER stress response at physiologically relevant concentrations, effects that may contribute, at least in part, to the neurotoxicity of the drug in vitro.

and much much more! you're gonna think im nerdy, but I like reading abstracts and scientific publications. If I ever become a research scientist, i'm gonna have to write some of my own. Interesting to see how they conducted research and try (in my own limited way with my own limited understanding) to evaluate their results. As it turns out, this pyschosis thing affects females with a BMI of less than 20 more severely than other groups. Well then, I'm safe! Benefits of being tubby surface for once. How it works? I'm not too sure, but apparently the side effects arise from some neurotoxic effects, possibily by affecting calcium levels, as suggested by the last reference. Which would be quite consistent (i think) with the results in the previous research which show that connective tissue was affected. Need to go find out more...

posted by beckyboo @ 11:58 AM