I am a cis woman.  I started spiro three days ago for hormonal acne. I am having severe muscle pain, no appetite and an upset stomach.  I don't know what to do.  I am so sorry to dump my trivial problem on your ladies, but any help or advice?  I don't know if I should be scared or if this is just typical when adjusting to hormonal drugs. I am 38 and have an IUD.  On nothing else but Flonase and an occasional ambien.

If by muscle pain you mean muscle cramping you're most likely dehydrated. Spironolactone is a diuretic in addition to it's other properties it makes you dump a lot of water and sodium but retain potassium. Drink lots of water, be careful of potassium laden foods like potatoes and bananas and CALL YOUR DOCTOR.

:

April 22, 2015, the day of my first face to face pass in gender neutral clothes and no makeup. It may be months to the next one, but I'm good with that!

Being transgender is just a phase. It hardly ever starts before conception and always ends promptly at death.

They say the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train. I say, climb aboard!

Think outside the voice box!

If it is from sodium loss and dehydration the problem will clear up within hours if you eat some salt and drink some water.  Try at least 1/2 to 1 tsp salt and then drink a couple of liters of water over an hour or two.  You also may need to supplement magnesium.  Most people do need that, even those not on spiro.


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Hi Kristina, welcome to Susan's Place! Good advice already given here. Water means water, though. Other drinks don't count. Spiro kicked my ass on starting and on dosage increase, but the uncomfortable symptoms disappeared rather quickly. The "Are you sure you're still alive?" LOW blood pressure continued, though. 

Hugs, Devlyn

Quote from: Kristina18 on September 24, 2017, 01:58:01 PM
I am a cis woman.  I started spiro three days ago for hormonal acne. I am having severe muscle pain, no appetite and an upset stomach.  I don't know what to do.  I am so sorry to dump my trivial problem on your ladies, but any help or advice?  I don't know if I should be scared or if this is just typical when adjusting to hormonal drugs. I am 38 and have an IUD.  On nothing else but Flonase and an occasional ambien.

Hello Kristina, Spiro is an diuretic. If you end up dehydrated, you can easily show the symptoms you have. Drink a lot of water and feel free to eat all the salty food you like. It's one of the bonuses of this stuff. If your symptoms cntinue after you've hydrated properly and ingested enough sodium, then it's time to get back to your Dr.

Quote from: Dee Marshall on September 24, 2017, 02:28:38 PMDrink lots of water, be careful of potassium laden foods like potatoes and bananas and CALL YOUR Doctor!

Potatoes aren't especially potassium rich, are they?  First Google hit for foods that are lists these:

Avocado
Acorn squash
Spinach
Sweet potato
Wild-caught salmon
Dried apricots
Pomegranate
Coconut water
White beans
Banana

Quote from: Lucy Ross on September 24, 2017, 07:11:36 PM
Potatoes aren't especially potassium rich, are they?  First Google hit for foods that are lists these:

Avocado
Acorn squash
Spinach
Sweet potato
Wild-caught salmon
Dried apricots
Pomegranate
Coconut water
White beans
Banana

I had heard potatoes but would be more than happy to be wrong.

:

April 22, 2015, the day of my first face to face pass in gender neutral clothes and no makeup. It may be months to the next one, but I'm good with that!

Being transgender is just a phase. It hardly ever starts before conception and always ends promptly at death.

They say the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train. I say, climb aboard!

Think outside the voice box!

Potatoes are a good potassium source.  However, in my experience you can still eat them several times a week without driving your blood potassium level too high.  The only caveat is that you aren't eating something else also that's way high in potassium.

In my most recent blood test my potassium level was towards the upper end of normal with eating white and sweet potatoes a few times each week and spinach and avocado nearly every day.

It also might make a difference if you work out a lot and lose those electrolytes through sweating.


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Welcome to Susan's Place Kristina18, In the western diet, Orange juice, bananas and potatoes are the big sources of Potassium. There are others so you need to check levels for anything you eat. I learned this years ago while dealing with a kidney patient as accumulating potassium could be deadly and they need to very careful about this. One of the tricks with potatoes was to slice them thin and allow them to soak in water before cooking. It leaches some of the potassium out of them but not all of it.

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PopGeek,
Hello! Cis-woman here. Sorry for invading this space, I just am at the end of my rope with this nerve pain.
Did you ever find any kind of relief from this pain? I stopped Spironolactone about a month ago and within days of stopping, I started getting terrible muscle and nerve pain that seems to only be getting worse. I have had all of my levels checked, and everything has checked out fine with my B12 being borderline low but not necessarily low. I've also had changes in vision. My doctors are skeptical about the Spiro causing the nerve pain, but I've now seen multiple people who have gotten nerve pain after taking this medicairon. Please let me know if you got to the bottom of this!!

By the way, my water intake is great. I have made an extra conscious effort over the past month to drink more water and I've been drinking quite a bit with no relief. I am just hoping so badly that this isn't permanent, the idea scares me so bad.

I wasn't sure whether it was the spiro, estradiol, stress, or diet changes, but I did have muscle cramp, circulation, and nerve issues off and on for maybe a month or so after being on spiro + estradiol for about 6-8 weeks.  It's been gone for about a month now though, so I'm guessing it was a temporary adjustment period of some kind, at least in my case.

I mostly had tingling and burning in hands and feet, worse with lots of pressure (too much jogging for example), and a lot more muscle cramps.  Making sure I got enough water and magnesium helped a lot with the cramps, and I did end up with a few pinched nerves due to muscle issues that I needed physical therapy to resolve (very old problems that just got pushed over the edge with a little more muscle tightness), but things seem to be fine now.

I don't know if it just resolved with time or due to me being more careful with diet, but I've been making sure to get enough (but not too much!) salt, magnesium, b vitamins, and iodine (in case of any minor thyroid issues).

Edit:  given that I'm a bit overweight, I was super worried about diabetes, so I got multiple fasting and non-fasting blood sugar tests and an a1c while this was going on and they all came back totally normal.  All other blood work was normal as well.

I never did figure out what was causing my symptoms or why they went away, but as long as they're gone and don't return, I don't see a point in worrying about it.

Regardless, talk to your doctor about it, especially if it doesn't resolve after a few weeks with diet improvements.

I've been on Spiro for 25 years for congestive heart failure. Neuropathy is generally caused by diabetes. I got that too. Besides destroying my sex life it has done little else than make me pee. Which plays havoc  Because the moisture does not make it to soften the stools.

Hello all! Hope you had a great holiday if you are celebrating! I just wanted to follow up to see if anyone found a cause or relief for nerve/muscle pain after taking Spironolactone. I am 5 months from my last dose and I'm still having issues that my doctors can't seem to give me insight on. I haven't gotten my hormones (other than thyroid) tested yet so I wonder if that would be a good route to try, especially considering I've had irregular periods since all of this started.

periods? were you taking this for acne?

I was taking it because my physicians thought I had hyperaldosteronism that was causing my hypertension. They found out after a CT that I don't have adrenal adenomas like they thought and they discontinued the Spironolactone soon after. I only correlate the periods because I know Spironolactone can affect hormones.

did your adrenal glands get straightened out? Cuz' if they're still creating an adrenaline surplus you could be experiencing your problem directly from that. If you're not getting enough potassium in your blood, your present issue could be directly tied to that specifically.

I'm honestly not sure about the adrenal glands, they haven't really re-tested my aldosterone since the CT disproved their adrenal adenoma theory months ago. I've had my potassium checked a handful of times since the pain started and it's been normal or extremely close to normal range (I had one measurement that was just barely below the reference range, followed by a normal one two days later).

Quote from: PopGeek on October 01, 2014, 11:17:01 PM
Hi all. New member but long time lurker here. I'm desperate for some advice, so I came out of hiding and finally registered. 

Has anyone experienced severe side effects from Spironolactone? I honestly feel like it's killing me...
...

Does anyone have any advice for me? I stopped the Spiro almost a month ago now, but still feel terrible. Maybe a bit better, but still... Pretty awful. The pain can just get brutal.

Hi PopGeek

I had a horrible time on Spiro about 10 years ago and had to change meds.  At the time I had the usual issues with peeing a lot, and drank alot of water to balance that out, but as well as the peeing I just felt horrible. 

I had a low grade fever, and generally felt like I had some sort of flu virus.  I don't recall the exact details but when I went back to the Endo, she found some liver levels that were elevated, and changed me from Spiro to CA.  Since then each time I've been on hormones I've had CA instead of spiro and had no problems.  Although it may be rare the odd person may not tolerate Spiro well (& I was one of those).  Another good reason why it's so important to have the care of a good doctor or Endo to help look after you.

Love & Hugs
Anna

Hi Anna. Just a heads up but the OP origionally posted nearly 5 years ago. So this thread is pretty necroed.

Quote from: luckygirl on December 27, 2018, 04:23:27 PM
Hi Anna. Just a heads up but the OP origionally posted nearly 5 years ago. So this thread is pretty necroed.

Still good information though.