[JoeProBono]

Viagra is enough of a household name that everyone knows what it's used for. And, thanks to the commercials, most also know that the medication may cause the unwanted and dangerous side effect of a more than 4-hour erection. What people may not know is that the drug may also cause "blue vision" in users. In March, John Pettigrew, a 58-year-old plumber from England, experienced this unpleasant side effect, which Pfizer does warn of in the prescribing information that is given to users. In Pettigrew's case, the man admitted that he probably took too many of the little blue pills but joked that he was having "too much fun" using them.

Suffering from mild heartburn, upset stomach or diarrhea? Pepto Bismol provides relief of all those symptoms and is also available over-the-counter. But users beware - the drug also carries the odd, but harmless, side effects of causing a black, sometimes furry-feeling tongue, and black/grey stools.

Click here to read about 9 Drugs With Really Strange Side Effects

[Julia H.]

I get “black tongue” from Pepto Bismol all the time—AND black poo.

[Drango]

Is it OK to have a 3:59 hour erection? Just askin’.

[Islander7]

Some side effects are more serious that others.

[TheConservativeParty]

Celexa (citalopram). My aunt died at age 63 in December from taking this junk. She took the proper dosage. After a 4 month death investigation, the medical examiner finally finished the toxicology and said it was citalopram intoxication. Her liver was not eliminating this drug properly and it built up (intoxicated) her liver. She went to bed early, not feeling very well, died by 11pm. No warning. Only clue that led the M.E. to look for liver trouble, she was slightly jaundiced when the coroner came to the house after her sudden death.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Hubby got ‘black tongue’ from using ‘Listerine Smart Rinse - Whitening’. Oxidized his tongue, we believe. No big deal....but it looked like he’d been sucking on licorice for a couple of days. ;-)

[South40]

I'm not seeing the connection...

=

[mylife]

Some of the stuff out there is scary: "do you feel socially awkward? uneasy in a crowd?
Try new Partibrex! You'll be the life of the party!
Side effects could include incontinence, high blood pressure, sexual dysfunction and loss of vision."

"You'll crap yerself and go blind and wont be able to do the deed, but hey! You're enjoying life! and life seems to be laughing watching you!"

"Partibrex, because life is a contact sport"

[netmilsmom]

>>U.S. health officials say smoking is the No. 1 cause of preventable death in this country. Chantix has been shown to help users butt out, but it also carries a number of side effects. For example, it may give you insomnia and when you finally do fall asleep, you may find yourself having vivid dreams and/or nightmares.<<

Probably gives you a boost of acetylcholine. Both nicotine and acetylcholine have the same effect in the brain. If you want to quit and not pay for this med, take Choline and B-5.

Choline is a chemical precursor or “building block” needed to produce the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, as is B-5. However vivid dreams are also a side effect of the natural cure as well.

[Batrachian]

"Blue vision, oily stools, amnesia and "black tongue" are just some of the strange side effects carried by prescription and the over-the-counter medications."

Let's not forget "sausage fingers"

[nmh]

I wonder ... are men REALLY that preoccupied with their “performance” ?

[piytar]

I occasionally take a fairly common medicine for a fairly common condition (sorry, no details - private medical info), but it causes a rare side effect in me: after taking it and going to sleep, I will wake up sitting bolt upright and screaming at the top of my lungs from a nightmare that consists solely of a feeling of utter terror and a formless black void.

Was quite a shock the first time, even moreso for my roommate at the time. LOL.

[Cyber Liberty]

There’s a drug that reportedly causes spontaneous orgasms. I want to know what it is.

[manapua]

The article neglected to mention marijuana - from what I’ve seen, that drug makes people listen to really crappy music.

[RichInOC]

John Pettigrew, a 58-year-old plumber from England, experienced this unpleasant side effect, which Pfizer does warn of in the prescribing information that is given to users. In Pettigrew’s case, the man admitted that he probably took too many of the little blue pills but joked that he was having “too much fun” using them.

“Mornin’, ma’am, I’ve come to fix your pipes.”

[Chode]

i had to quit a prescription sleep aid after putting on 20lbs in less than 2 months with no change in diet...

after doing some research, i found one of the side effects is weight gain in 20% of users.

they are coming off MUCH HARDER and SLOWER than they went on.

[DemforBush]

I only took Ambien once, and boy howdy I did not like it. No gradual drowsiness or “heavy eyes” like OTC sleeping pills, I just felt a little lightheaded and then BAM! it was ten hours later. The scary part was the memory loss. To this this day I cannot recall what I was watching on television or what I had for dinner in the two or three hours before taking the pill.

Don’t know if that’s a typical reaction or not, but it was not something I cared to experience again.

[dfwgator]

My doctor gave me a prescription for these pills, and I tell you right now, I am high as a kite! You gotta get you some of these. They’re called... placebos!!! - Steve Martin

[Centurion2000]

If I ever want to trip for 72 hours. Take a sip of this stuff.

I don't know what is in this but I took it and it was the equivalent of a 72 hour LSD trip. Completely incapacitated and hallucinagenic.

[pandoraou812]

Levaquin. Horrible drug & causes all kinds of problems. I was walking into walls & acting strange.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

The all time winner for strange side effects comes from one of the first effective antidepressant drugs ever created, called Desipramine Hydrochloride, brand name Norpramine. It had every side effect in the book, and they were common side effects, but nobody cared, because it broke up horrible, awful, chronic depression.

Created early in our modern understanding of neurochemistry, it was a shotgun solution to a BB gun problem. At its peak, over 2,000,000 Americans were taking it. But once the FDA had approved it, testing on the drug stopped in America.

But the Japanese continued evaluating it, and made a very startling discovery.

When mammals are infants, the most important part of early learning is to put parameters on reality. Size, shape, perspective, color, etc. must be hardwired into our brains so we can sort them out from the deluge of information entering our senses.

Desipramine Hydrochloride “softens” these parameters. It makes the hard wiring more adaptive again.

There is a classic psychological experiment of a man who wore special glasses that turned the images of what he saw upside down, for a period of some weeks. Eventually his brain was able to rewrite itself, so that the images flipped back to right side up. But then, after he removed the glasses, everything looked upside down through his eyes. Fortunately it righted itself again and returned his vision to normal.

But imagine if it just took a few days to rewrite your brain, to interpret reality in a different way? This is what Desipramine Hydrochloride did.

The Japanese took house cats, sewed one of their eyelids shut, then injected the drug into the optic center of their brains. Within a short time, the cats re-learned to see, but with only one eye. When the stitches were removed, the other eye functioned, and sent signals to the brain, but they were ignored. From then on, the cats were monocular, but with two good eyes.

And that was just one small part of their brains. Imagine the drug administered to their entire brain.

What humans normally perceive is actually a very small portion of what we could perceive. Perhaps only 10% of what we could sense we do sense, with the rest being ignored. And of that 10%, perhaps only 1% makes it past the censorship of the brain.

Makes you wonder what else we might perceive, if our minds were a bit more flexible.