Clinical trial, guinea pig and drugs

I'm high on some epileptic drug so I thought I might write about it. It's been a long long time since I wrote on my blog so might as well do this.

I'm a guinea pig in a clinical research. That's the topic today.

I was looking for clinical research a few weeks ago because I knew from NY that I can earn pretty good money with it. There I was doing psychiatrical stuff about my ADHD, once I was doing a study for tics and several times I was in MRI scan for various reasons at NYU, Mount Sinai or NY State Psychiatric Institute. I liked it, it was fun. And an interesting way to earn some money. I was never hospitalized, I never took drugs that were not approved by FDA and mostly I was just doing MRI scans or a research of some drugs and supplements for ADHD. Once, couple months ago just before I was finished with school I was meant to be hospitalized for a day or two.

Unfortunately, that never happened because they did a drug test and they found opiates in my urine.

Strange, huh? Probably surprising, right?

Well, not for me because it wasn't the first time. I was excluded from ADHD study before because I had opiates twice in my blood.

Again,weird, eh? 

But the explanation is simple.

Poppy seeds!

Bloody Brighton Bazaar with its delicious poppy seed pastry I was eating every other day. This is the pastry that made me look like a drug addict. I'm still not sure the researcher believed my explanation.

The point is, poppy seed can maybe make you high. Well, kind of...

I'm digressing a lot now but I thought this is a funny story.

I was looking for clinical research a few weeks ago, that's the beginning. I found nothing in Brno and one place in Prague. I filled out a form, signed for a study and then they invited me to come. I couldn't come for the first meeting but they did a second one so I came. An hour late because the bus got delayed, but I made it. Because I came late there was only one girl with me as a volunteer and the researcher. She explained the study which will consist of two parts, over three days each. We will come on Sunday evening, on Monday morning we will be given the drug after which we will be monitored and our blood will be sampled every ten minutes in the beginning. On Tuesday afternoon we will be released. She explained what can happen to us as well. We will be dizzy, confused, tired and so on. But we will be under constant control and we won't be allowed to leave the bed. Pregabalin, which is the drug being tested is not new. It's been used for about 12 years now and because the patent expired, they are testing generic versions. They will be comparing how are Pregabalin and the generic version processed in our system. That's why it's over two weeks and that's why they will be sampling our blood so often.

Since it's just a one-time thing, the drug didn't seem to do anything bad and it has been used for several years, I assumed there's little risk involved and I signed the consent form. 

Then I went to see a friend who was kind enough to give me a place to sleep. In the morning I came to Quinta Analytica again for some tests. Quinta is not a hospital and not even a part of a hospital. It's two big buildings and they all seem to serve as a research center. The first building, I never visited, seemed from a window like a lab, people in coats, all kinds of equipment etc. The other looked more like a small hospital. The third floor was where I came the next day to be tested. They took my urine, blood sample, checked my temperature, pressure, did EKG and asked about my medical history. It all took maybe 20 minutes.

This was Thursday morning. After this, I went back to Brno. On Friday, I received a text message and an email I'm accepted. On Sunday evening, I came to Prague again. They checked if I'm not drunk if I didn't take any drugs and again they took my pressure and temperature. They asked if I wasn't drinking or eating any citruses in the last two days and they also made sure I wasn't chewing any gums. All of these things could affect how the drug works so I had to avoid all of these for a few days before the study.
After that, they brought me to a room with four other guys. We didn't have to do anything the first evening except get a dinner. I wasn't expecting much but when I got two rohliks (Typical Czech pastry. Kind of like small baguette), one small butter and a little bit bigger container of jam I was quite disappointed. Especially because I'm trying to cut on sugars. I ate it and went back to my reading. 

There are almost 30 people here as volunteers and at times the medical staff consisted of around 20 people taking care of us. For the most part, it was maybe 4 people, sometimes only 2. There are several rooms on the first floor, then bathrooms and big dining/common area. The place looks like a hospital but it's quite pleasant doesn't doens't have a weird smell and looks new and clean. After an information meeting about the next day and dinner at 9pm, some people went to their rooms and some stayed in the common area. I was reading, playing with my new phone and then I was doing some stuff on a computer. I went to bed before midnight and fell asleep quickly. Nothing interesting happened the first day.

The next day we were woken up at 5:30. We have a set schedule for the whole study and everything has to be right on time. Since there are 30 people the schedule is moved by two minutes for every volunteer. The schedule says a glass of water at 6 am. This only applies to the first person, though. My number is 18 and my schedule is moved by 34 minutes. Therefore, when they woke us at 5:30 I knew I have some time to sleep. I woke a bit after 6, brushed my teeth and went tothe dining area to read. I'm reading “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe” by Charles Yu. I finished the whole book while being here. It was pretty good.

We have set schedule for water and food intake as well. We had dinner the first day but then we were allowed only water until 11 am the next day. I drank my water and then I received a cannula into my left arm. In case you don't know what cannula is, because I didn't until now, it's a little plastic needle that stays in your body so it can be used again to draw blood. No need to put needles into my body 20 times which I appreciate, even though it's annoying little thing.

They took a sample of my blood again and sent me to a dining room. I was reading for a while again until I was told to go and take the drug. I took the pill, drank 200ml of water and was sent to bed.

The next part was partly annoying and partly great. The annoying part was that for the next 2 hours nurses came and took my blood every 10 minutes. The great part was that I was lying in bed, everyone was taking great care of me and there were six groups of nurses taking the blood. Some of them funny, some had interesting talks with each other and some were young and good looking. Not a bad morning.

For more than an hour nothing realy happened. The nurses came, took blood from all of the five guys in the room, left and immediately another two nurses appeared and did the same. All precise and exactly by the schedule. After about 1.5 hours I started to feel the drug. I felt dizzy, a little bit confused and light headed. I continued reading but after a while, I asked to use the bathroom. I was given a company of a doctor and was told not to lock the door.They told me not to hurry and for a good reason. I was walking as a drunk person even though I felt pretty sober in my head. During the bathroom break, I fully realized the effects. In the bed, I just felt tired and light headed. When walking I was more like drunk or better yet, hungover. It wasn't anything bad really. Having a hangover is not too bad when your head is not throbbing and your stomach is not trying to get rid of its content. 

After 9 am the nurses started to come in 30 minutes intervals and I was half asleep for the next maybe two hours. I was awake every time they took my blood but I saw it 10 times before that day so I wasn't paying attention at all. They just came on time, hold my arm, took some blood from it and left. The drug really hit me during this time and I wasn't in a state where I could fully process what's going on. It wasn't painful or even unpleasant. Only my consciousness was somewhat affected by it. I slept until 11:30 when we received a breakfast. Again, I was dissapointed because it was exactly the same as dinner. Well, not really, actually. For dinner, I had the two rohliks, butter and I chose a strawberry jam. For breakfast, I was given currant-apple jam. I ate it and I was happy. Happy and very confused as well. After the breakfast, I started to feel a bit more sober. I went to the bathroom and then I took out my laptop to write about this experience. It's 13am now and the first people are now receiving their lunch. We have lunch with soup included, so my only hope is that it's something else than just pastry. Something warm would be nice. Anyway, I'm going to read probably, wait for my lunch and then maybe sleep. I'll be back with more updates later. I still feel a little light headed now but it's wearing off. I should feel normal after the lunch and sleep I think.

I didn't go to sleep, but I have received lunch. Finally a normal meal! It was rice meat and UHO, which only makes sense in Czech. UHO means universal brown sauce and it's a typical meal I've received during my school years many many times. It's not bad, though, I enjoyed the one normal warm meal.

Afterwards, I managed to write on messenger to my roommate to find me a PUK number because I somehow locked my phone. The interesting part is that I did it on my black and white Kindle. Funny experience. After lunch, the effects started to wear off completely as expected. I was playing with my phone, received a snack consisting of a croissant and another fruit tea. We have a fruit tea with every meal. I wonder why. After 4 pm we were told we can leave the bed and walk freely. Now I feel fine, something is slightly off but it's fine. Almost normal. It really feels like a day with a hangover without the sickness and headache. We have free time now until tomorrow afternoon. We just have to be in place because they'll take our blood again a couple times. I don't think anything interesting will happen now.
It  didn't. 

We were woken up at 6 am again, we had our blood sample taken and then did nothing at all. We were moved to a different dining area for the morning and at 3pm released.

Now I'm in the second part of the study. Everything went pretty much the same as the first time. Except this drug didn't affect me as much as the previous one.
One interesting thing is my roommate who is a very funny person. The unfortunate thing is that he doesn't realize he is. He's the typical example of a person who complains. Just now, after watching the weather, he told me that today was nice but we were just laying in bed but tomorrow will be cold and maybe even snowy. I like a reaction of one nurse to his complaining about the politics. She said she doesn't watch politics. To that, my roommate replied: "but you have too, it affects us all. The health services too." Her response was: "I was a nurse for twenty years and it still always sucks."
These examples are not too bad but I have problems not laughing when he suddenly starts to shout: "Bloody bastard", "stupid idiots" or maybe simply "wankers". It's hard to translate it, he's very creative with his Czech insults but it's cracking me up when he does randomly out of nothing in our room or in the dining area.
Anyway, I think that kind of summarizes the whole experience of being hospitalized.

So far I kind of like this way of earning money. Of course, there are risks involved, depending on the specific research. And of course, there are some disadvantages, like the fact it's in Prague or that you need to be free for several days. On the other hand, it pays well. For this research, I'm getting 8000kč (about $330 which might not seem like much but it pays my rent almost three times :- ) and I have a lot of free time to do whatever you want. Again, it might differ every research. Overall, from this experience and from the several clinical trials I was part of in NY, I can only recommend it. Be careful, and do your research, but that applies to anything you do. My friends joked I'm going to lose my hair and whatnot but some people seemed truly scared of this. I don't think there's a reason for that. My mom was scared too but she asked a friend who's a researcher in a similar lab and he said it's not dangerous, so she calmed down.

And for the people in Czech who might be interested in this I give you a link to Quinta.

If you are truly interested in doing this it would be nice to say I recommended you because I get some money. I am even willing to share it, so please say honzamalyjr@gmail.com recommended you if you sign up.

Have a nice day! :)