Every drug has side effects, and we usually just ignore them. Hell, even your toothpaste has warnings and cautions about unintended effects — a laundry list of possible things that could go wrong. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. It seems like anything that comes in pill form could give you that. But some drugs…some drugs are scary. They can permanently change you. They can fuck up your life. They can give you man boobs. These are the worst of the worst.
13. Antidepressants and Depression
Coming at you straight from the halls of irony comes one of the most common side effects of antidepressants: depression. That’s right, they caused the very thing they were meant to cure you of. Like the rest of the internet, I don’t actually know what irony is, but I’m pretty sure this qualifies. Prozac was especially renowned for this, and young adults seem to be hit pretty hard. Lets face it, life’s shitty when you’re in High School. So your parents decide to make your already crappy existence even worse by sticking you on antidepressants, which just make you feel even worse. Plus, they make you fat. Yeah, that’s more or less the worst thing you can do to a 15 year old.
12. Sex and Gambling
ReQuip is a drug designed to help Alzheimer’s and Restless Leg Syndrome. More scientifically known as Ropinirole, it’s a non-ergoline dopamine agonist, and one of only two drugs that the FDA has okayed for dealing with RLS. However, one of the long, long list of side effects associated with the drug — including liver, kidney, eye and skin problems — is compulsive behavior. While on the drug, there’s a chance you’ll completely lose your ability to control your impulses. Not just any impulses, but specifically you’ll be hit with a major need to have crazy-ass sex, and go gambling. Which could lead one of two paths: dapper, baccarat playing, seducer — like James Bond. Or, skeezy pervert who lost all his money at the dog races. Guess which you’d be more likely to be stuck with? You don’t even have to have had issues with that in the past, and all of a sudden you’re blowing your mortgage on underage hookers and back-alley craps games. Thanks, GlaxoSmithKline!
11. Hormonal Contraceptive
Another of life’s horrible fucking ironies, which seems only to exist in order to make fun of us. The pill, the patch, the ring, the implant: they’re all effective ways of not getting up the duff while having sex. So, yay for you, you’re getting some! You’re in a happy, monogamous relationship, so you’re not worried about STIs! You both get checked out, are clean of all bugs, and you go on the pill! Time for some hot, hot bareback action! Not so fast, girly! Common side effects of hormonal contraceptives are: loss of sex drive, vaginal dryness, and weight gain. You don’t want to have sex; you can’t have sex; and you don’t feel sexy. Oh you pharmaceutical sons of bitches! That’s a bastard of a catch 22!
10. Oily, Leaky Stool
Alli and Olestra are the two evils here, for similar but separate reasons. Alli was billed as a miracle weight loss cure — you don’t absorb fat anymore! No fat absorbed, eat as many pizzas as you want, you overweight git! Olestra was marketed just as a fat replacement, it goes in food, and you get all that delicious oily goodness, but none gets absorbed by your body. Now kids, what happens to things we ingest that don’t get digested? That’s right, they come out the ass. Now, the anus is usually pretty good at stopping solids coming out, but when it’s pure oil? It’s not designed for that abuse. And so, you get uncontrollable anal leakage of oil that looks like grease off a cheap slice of pizza. When you lest expect it, oily shit will come leaking out your ass and into your underwear. Frankly, I’ll rather just absorb fat normally, thanks.
9. Gray Skin Syndrome
There are at least two drugs in existence that can make you look like a movie-star from the ’40s. Amiodarone is an antiarrhythmic agent, so it’s used to help regulate your heartbeat. In some cases, it has the bewildering side effect of making your skin turn grey/blue. How freaking weird would that be? To have your skin gradually change color, to a hue no human should encounter? You know what’s worse? Chloramphenicol, and antibiotic sometimes given to newborns. How bad are its effects? The term for what happens is “Gray Baby Syndrome”. That’s right, your kid has had the saturation slider pulled all the way down, thanks to an antibiotic.
8. Delayed Orgasm
Another absolute horror associated with antidepressants — this time SSRIs. Of those on the drugs, somewhere between 35%-70% of them get hit with major issues with their sexual health. Officially listed as “decreased libido, delayed orgasm, anorgasmia, erectile dysfunction, and difficulties with arousal”, these problems can be major. Calling it “delayed orgasm” is putting a rather nice spin on it, because what actually happens? You can’t come. You can tug that thing till you wear the skin off. You can rub your coffee bean until you’ve chafed through an entire bottle of lube. You can fuck for 24 hours straight, while watching porn on 14 screens at once. Nothing. Nada. Zip. You just can’t come. Jeez, at least if you’re on cocaine and can’t get off, you’re still a stinking rich stock trader from the 80s; if you’re on SSRIs, there’s a pretty good change your life already sucks. And now you can’t orgasm.
7. Permanent Eye Color Change
Bimatoprost is a drug used to control glaucoma, with the side-effect of making your eyelashes grow longer. So Allergan had an idea. They took the glaucoma drug, and created the fake disease “inadequate eyelashes”, and market it as Latisse. Slap everywoman Brooke Shields on the ads, and you’ll have women flocking to buy a product to make their thin, anemic eyelashes grow into mighty branches. So as long as you keep pouring this gunk into your eyes, your lashes are long, but if you stop, they evaporate. But you know what effect is has that’s permanent? It’ll turn your iris brown. Say what? That’s right, if you have blue or green eyes, you might never see them again. Using Latisse causes irreversible pigment change in the eyes of some people, leaving them with brown eyes, regardless of their original color.
6. Coffee Grounds Vomit
Plavix is a drug to prevent your blood from clotting after a heart attack or stroke, so you’re already in a pretty serious position if you’re taking it. Naturally, as it stops your body from clotting bleeds properly, there are all sorts of horrific side effects, the most terrifying of which is “coughing up blood or vomit that looks like coffee grounds”. What happens, is that any minor bleeding in the stomach doesn’t heal properly, and that blood has to come out somewhere. So you either get “black, bloody, or tarry stools” or it comes out your mouth. Looking like coffee grounds. I’m sorry, if I’m coughing up coffee ground looking blood, I’m stopping whatever the hell you have me on. That’s freaking terrifying!
5. Manboobs
Oh man, you’re going bald? That sucks, why not go on Propecia? Then the ladies will love your flowing, sexy, full head of hair! Of course, using something that fucks with your hormones on such a fundamental level is bound to have some issues: testicular pain, abnormal sexual function, irreversible impotence and erectile dysfunction, gynecomastia…wait, what was that last one? Bitch tits. Moobs. Man boobs. Great big sweaty tits on your chest. Not sexy, not for anyone. Girls don’t like it, guys don’t like it. So, while you might have some more hair on your head, you have horrible sexual dysfunctions, and tits. Somehow, I don’t think that was worth the trade-off. But hey, that’s just me.
4. Fucking Everything About Ambien
Ambien is meant to help you get to sleep. But, if you hold out on going to bed, something interesting happens. There’s a scientific term for it, which is called “going fucking crazy”. Seriously, it will make you balls-to-the-wall insane. It’s so fucked up, that people have started doing it as a recreational drug. You hallucinate, call people you haven’t talked to for years, eat huge amounts of food, have crazy sex, sleep-walk, sleep-drive, and generally become a completely different person. It’s essentially a Jekyll and Hyde drug, leaving you with the cleanup, but none of the awesome memories. The internet is littered with stories about people taking Ambien, and calling all their ex-girlfriends, and holding complete conversations while under the drug. That’s scary, yo!
3. Suicide
Chantix is a drug designed to help you with a very specific problem — quitting smoking. Giving up the lung darts can require an iron will at the best of times, and a bit of pharmaceutical help is always appreciated. Except Chantix makes you want to kill yourself. Not just depression, because God knows there’s enough of that when you try and quit smoking. Chantix actually makes you want to off yourself. It puts suicidal ideas in your brain. According to the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, in Q4 2007, this drug was more responsible for reports of serious side effects than any other on the market. Woohoo, you’re number 1! Now, if only the people taking you didn’t want to get all up close and personal with the Grim Reaper.
2. Brain Zaps
So, after seeing the horrible side effects of anti-depressants on this list, you decide to quit the pills. After all, is life really that bad, that it’s worth the utter horrors that SSRIs reap on your body? Welcome to the worst fucking comedown ever. You think trying to quite heroin is bad? Dead babies and the shits have nothing on what SSRIs will put you through. It takes at least 10 days to push through the pain, and believe me, you will feel pain. Because you get the brain zaps. Imagine someone shoving a taser in your brain. Every 5 minutes. For two weeks. Now combine that with dizziness, sweating, nausea, insomnia, tremor, confusion, and vertigo, and you get an idea of what people go through coming off these drugs. You will crawl into a ball and want to die. You won’t be able to talk to anyone. You won’t be able to leave the house. Even the most basic task will be nigh on insurmountable. Fun, huh?
1. Death
The big one. The be all and end all of side effects. Once this one hits, there’s no going back. That’s right: death. The funny thing is, it’s a surprisingly common side effect. Not that you’ll ever get it, but I’m pretty sure if you go rifling through your medicine cabinet, you’ll find at least one drug that has that tucked away in the “side effects” section, in tiny, tiny print. Adderall, Tamiflu, Celebrex, Gardasil, Accutane, and Botox. They’re all out to get you. Thankfully, this worst possible side effect is rare enough, that if there was ever a major risk from it, a product would never reach the market. We hope. FDA, don’t fuck it up.