Me on a perfect day. I am standing on a hilltop which overlooks a medieval village in Luxembourg. It is surrounded by a river that looks like and serves as a moat. The village is called Esch-sur-Sure. I would love to be there now.
It’s Me March 15, 2008
Meds I’ve Been Prescribed March 14, 2008
A discussion on another blog prompts me to give some background on my medication usage history. I was originally prescribed anti-depressants in 1989 or 90. It started with Prozac. Over the next ten years I was prescribed Paxil, Remeron, Zoloft, Lexapro, Wellbutrin and Effexor. Those of you who have had experience with the psychiatric system know all too well what that was like. Everytime I went in and complained that I was still depressed or that the side effects were preventing me from functioning, they prescribed another drug.
After a few years of anti-depressant usage I started to experience anxiety, sleep disturbances, mood swings and other symptoms I can no longer remember. My ability to function, which had been very high, was decreasing with every year. As a result, I started being prescribed Xanax and Valium. By 2000, my depression and anxiety had reached an all time high and I was prescribed Prozac again. This triggered a severe mania which led to a bipolar disorder diagnosis. I was prescribed Lithium and placed on disability for a year. The lithium made me feel like an absolutey desperate zombie. I stayed on it for perhaps six months. I sat in the house for a year trying all sorts of medications for bipolar disorder and hating myself. I believed my life was over. I was broken and irreparable.
Since 2000 I have been given anti-depressants intermittently and what I now know are neuroleptics. I have been on Clonazepan, Zyprexa, Risperdal, Seroquel, Lamictal, Klonopin and a few others I can’t remember.
So, in all I have been medicated for 18 years on at least 15 different medications. I have been hospitalized twice but only overnight.
It was suggested elsewhere that perhaps because of my youth ( I am 39) or because I had not been on medications very long (18 years); the cold turkey cessation worked for me. I don’t know why it worked or if there will be problems down the road. I am hopeful that I am indeed one of the lucky few but I have no way of knowing what long term damage was done.
Pushy Pompous Psychiatrist March 13, 2008
When I decided to discontinue use of the psych meds, I tried to do the responsible thing and called my psychiatrist. It was my intention to taper off the meds under doctor supervision as had been recommended to me.
I had only seen this psych on two other occasions…both times he prescribed new medications based on a 50 minute interview. When I needed to see him this time he was on vacation and I was referred to another psych. I came armed with my list of side effects and other information I had gathered regarding the possibility that I did not need to take these medications. After 30 minutes of talking to me, this new psych tried to diagnose me with a new disorder. This time it was borderline personality disorder. When I asked him why he was jumping to that conclusion he said often times people are misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder who actually have borderline personality disorder and I seemed agitated to him which was a symptom.
Here I was trying to explain that I thought I had been misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder due to a reaction to Prozac, spent the last 8 years suffering from the side effects of more than 15 different meds and believed I didn’t need any medication. He was fast on his feet trying to keep me popping pills. It was the same old thing. The drugs aren’t working? Must be something else wrong with you we didn’t notice before.
I left angry with a script for a reduced amount of my medications. I did not fill that script. That visit was the final straw. I decided to quit cold turkey and hopefully never see the inside of another psychiatrists office.
Cold Turkey March 12, 2008
Despite the admonitions I received from doctors, friends, and husband I decided to quit Lamictal and Seroquel cold turkey 7 weeks ago. The first week I was very physically ill and missed most of the work week but by the end of that first week I was feeling much better and now I feel better than I have in a very long time. I know that cold turkey is not the way to go for many but it seems to have worked for me. I was lucky.
