People who took part in failed clinical trials, what were the worst symptoms you experienced and how bad did they get?

1. I took part in a trial of a Malaria Vaccine. The vacine didn't have any side-effects, but I did have to sit with a cup of mosquitos on my arm biting me. Also I got Malaria.
   — rubiks19


2. When I was in grad school I volunteered to be in an experiment at the dental school. I needed to get a wisdom tooth out and the deal was that they would test out a new filling material and at the end they get to keep the tooth, and I would get $300 and free dental work. After the first week it started to hurt. After the second week the dentists were saying to take more than a double dose of ibuprofen, and keep taking more unless my ears started ringing. By the time three weeks were up there were moments where had to sit down from the pain. Six months after they removed the tooth I was back for a check up. I asked the dentist if the experiment was a failure and she sort of smiled and said that it was going into wider clinical trials. That's when I realized that I had been part of the control group, valiantly proving that cavities hurt.
   — jeffbell


3. Phase I clinical trial for a skin cream designed for emergency burn care. Half the participants, myself not included, started sloughing off sheets of skin like lepers. For the ones affected, their bedsheets or pajamas would pull away the top layer of their arm/leg (we had only one limb "treated" per dosage). It was pretty gruesome, and the trial was cancelled after just a week. I spent a while worried about it happening, then assumed I was in the control group. Turns out I wasn't, but what the cream was doing was making the skin ultra-sensitive to sunlight. Since I worked indoors and had just discovered Team Fortress 2, I didn't get enough sunlight to trigger the side effect.
   — SweaterZach






4. My sister in law was on a clinical trial to test out a lighter dose of birth control. I suppose my niece could described as a 'symptom'.
   — othybear


5. CALGB 10801 Did a number on my liver, but I don't have Leukemia now so I will take it.
   — DScum


6. Not quite a clinical trial, but in the mid 80s my father was one of the first people to accept a new hayfever vaccine - he'd suffered badly year on year. Few weeks later, he started losing weight, feeling fatigued and just generally being ill; he was admitted to hospital and, after what he describes as hundreds of medical tests failed to find any reason for why he was ill, the best they could come up with is that somehow a heterosexual man who had never used drugs or had a blood transfusion had somehow developed AIDS (remember, this is back when it was still being called GRID.) It was just assumed he'd get sicker and sicker until he died, but one day he started to get better, which also stumped the people researching AIDS because that hadn't happened to anyone else, the eventual conclusion being they didn't know what it was but it can't have been that. Doctors basically told him he seemed fine now, just get on with his life. He went back to get the vaccine again the next year, but was told that it had been withdrawn after loads of people died after having it. Turns out it was just a massive dose of steroids, it trashed the immune system and people couldn't fight off common illnesses. Hard to prove in retrospect, but it's assumed he came close to joining them.
   — The_Sown_Rose






7. My boobs swelled up until it looked like I'd bolted basketballs onto my ribcage. Then, I started lactating. Like, a lot. Like, can't leave my house, cause my tits are geysers, constantly shooting out some mystery fluid and occasionally blood. Then came the vertigo and CONSTANT TINNITUS. After a few days of this, I advised the doctor the final side effect was going to be suicide if we didn't start weaning me off this shit.
   — malackey


8. One of my friends went in for a research study. He got paid $4500 to try out a new med for an issue he was having (I think it was an insomnia treatment, I'll have to ask him). Anyways, now he sweats 100% of the time and has to drink over a gallon of water a day to remain reasonably hydrated. Not worth imo.
   — BlotOutTheSun


9. I got a bit of a headache. They cancelled 2/3 of the study because some liver values were higher than they should have been. Still got paid out in full. Living on the edge.
   — Rhaka






10. Not a "failed" trial necessarily, since all the data was important. But my father-in-law was a conscientious objector for religious reasons during Vietnam. The Army assigned him to be an insect-repellent tester. He would spend his days in an enclosed room, covered by different compounds to see how his mosquito companions would react. Some compounds worked better than others.
    — Hysterical_Realist


11. I was in a study that was testing how people infected with a certain immunodeficiency disease (can't remember what, wasn't HIV though) reacted to bedbug bites. I was a part of the healthy control group. I went into a sterile lab, got nibbled on safely by bedbugs (they put a screen between my arm and the bugs so they wouldn't end up on me), and then recorded my skin's reaction for a week. Did this 4 times I think? I was informed they didn't find out anything significant after the study concluded. Must've been a tough paper to submit to journals.
    — SolidVirginal


12. My parents own a research center. We have had a patient die before. The medication was in Phase 3, Phase 1 being the most dangerous and patients stay at the research center, all the way to phase 4 which is supposed to be the most safe. Every-time a patient dies while they are in a research study the pharmaceutical company must send out a “safety letter” which is kept on site with all the names of the patients who died and their believed cause of death. We do not know the EXACT cause of death since we were not able to obtain any information after but it is safe to assume that it was the medication as it had 4 patients total die. (Not in our site but around the world 4 total.)
    — HundrEX