Reglan Side Effects "Frightening"

Flushing, NYShelee H. says she may have been suffering from Reglan side effects for the past year but never realized it. She was prescribed the drug Reglan 2.5 years ago, following gastric bypass surgery. About one year ago she began to develop facial tics without realizing they were metoclopramide side effects.

"I had gastric bypass surgery on July 31, 2006," Shelee says. "I had some complications and in the hospital, they gave me Reglan intravenously. Thank God I made it through the complications. After that, Reglan stayed part of my daily cocktail. I take Reglan every night."

Shelee says that she suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and, because of that, assumed that the side effects associated with Reglan were actually caused by the OCD. She also says that she did not realize her face was twitching until it was pointed out to her.

"Over the last 7 months, people have been telling me that the area under my left eye is twitching," Shelee says. "I don't feel it at all. It's gotten progressively worse in 7 months. Now, it goes on for 3 to 4 minutes at a time. I didn't understand where this facial tic came from—I thought stress or OCD. I kept chalking it up to that and hoping it would stop, but it hasn't.

"When I heard about this [Reglan side effects] the other day, I almost fell off my chair. When it started, the twitching didn't happen very often, but now it happens many times a day. My daughter [Victoria] says that she sees it 4 to 5 times a day. My other daughter [Marah] says it happens in every conversation. I know that several months ago I was washing my hands and looking in the mirror. I saw a twitch in my eye. I didn't feel it, but I saw it. When I went out and mentioned it to my daughters, they said that it has been happening for a long time but they didn't point it out to me before that.

"I take the Reglan at night because I get very tired after I take it. When I first got it, I took it in the morning and then, 30 minutes later, I would have to sleep. That's why I take it at night."

Shelee's daughters say that they have noticed side effects that extend beyond eye twitching. "We attributed everything to the OCD," Victoria says. "But it seemed to go beyond the OCD. Like, she was touching her face a lot and didn't know she was doing it. She was fidgeting—very fidgety and had never been like that before, even with her OCD. It definitely seems like there is some sort of lack of muscle control. The OCD problems were specific, like touching a light switch, and she knew she was doing it. These problems are random, like moving her fingers or fixing her glasses and she does not realize that she's being that way."

"It's not just her eye twitching," says Marah. "It's the whole side of her face that twitches. It's normally her right side. I've seen her tongue make certain movements up and down that didn't happen before. Her eye sometimes tears up and she has no idea. It's like she has no control over her cheek, ear and jaw and she doesn't see that she's doing it [twitching]."

"It was never in my mind to equate my problems with Reglan," Shelee says. "I think I'm in avoidance about this. It's very shocking, very scary and very frightening, especially when I hear them say that these things aren't reversible."