Medications

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Does anyone else here take any medications for things like associated anxiety and depression etc? If so what has been your experience? Have they helped?

I have been on anti depressants for years but they just seemed to make things worse in the most part. Some of them I had allergic type reactions to or was so sensitive to their side effects I could not tolerate them, some gave me such bad migraines I could not function (SSRI) or even talk properly (I sounded drunk) and the one I have been on the last 10 years has affected my moods so badly that I am presently trying to wean off them. This is not an easy task after being on them for so long...I tried stopping completely at one point but had such awful withdrawal including electric shock sensations that I had to go back on them. I went back to my original dose but got such bad mood swings (I was actually feeling high on them) that I halfed the dose and am taking that for the time being.

I no longer feel high but I am in a sort of no mans land at the moment between feeling horribly depressed some days and not so depressed on others but kind of restless (as though I don't know what I want to do with myself) at others. Heck, I cannot even decide what I want to eat, and I do want to eat because one of the side effects of my tablets is appetite stimulation (my appetite gets switched on and never switches off!). I hate that side effect as they are known to cause obesity and I have gained over 7 stones since being on them (I was not over weight before the tablets...I had no weight problems at all).

Whilst I am still getting some mood swings on the lower dose I do not want to go back to the higher dose as the mood swings were worse. I was either high, angry or in the depth of despair. I never knew what mood I was in my moods could change so quickly and it was rather annoying trying to keep up with this barrage of ever changing emotions. They do not even feel natural, they feel chemically induced and cannot be changed by changing how I think about something (which makes me feel they are not stemming from me but from the antidepressant).

They are not as severe as they were on the higher dose (more periods of mood stability than before) but I am still left in this 'I do not know what I want to do with myself and am restless but constantly hungry state" and I feel a little down at times (which is easier to manage than feeling like I am high as a kite). I never used to get highs before medication so i do wonder if they sometimes induced hypomania. I do not know whether to attempt to drop the dose again by halving it.

They also seem to be killing my cognitive functions! Brain fog from hell.

What has been your experience with medications?

I'm taking Prozac, and it doesn't seem to be doing its job very well.

I've had good and bad with medication. For my depression/OCD I took Citalopram for many years. I had constant gut problems while I was on it meaning I had to take another medication to help with my stomach! It did help to some extent, but only for about a year then I had to go up a dose. The next time I needed to go up to 60mg it made my stomach so bad that I physically couldn't go up that high. As a result I was not well mentally.

This year I came off Citalopram because I had been on it nearly 8 years (I was told this wasn't good!). My body went through some kind of severe withdrawal and I was shaking, violent and seeing things. In order to stop this, I was given Fluoxetene (aka Prozac) but the Prozac actually helped so I stayed on it. I am still on it now. I don't have any obvious problems with Prozac except maybe the tiredness. I am not sure if that just comes at this time of year anyway though so I can't be certain it is a side effect.

The worst medications I have ever taken were both anti-psychotics. At the moment they are the only medication available for Tourettes and because mine is quite severe I wanted a break. I took Risperdal for about two weeks but I started hallucinating and hearing voices! As soon as I came off, I was fine. The psychiatrist decided, however, to re-attempt a few years later. Again I was psychotic, hallucinating and REALLY paranoid. Thankfully she got the message this time and when I came off I was fine. The other one I have taken is Aripiprazol. Thankfully it didn't make me get any mental side-effects, but I felt like a drugged up zombie. I was on it for two and a half weeks and I literally shuffled rather than walked, my eyes looked stoned (in photos) and I drooled! My neurologist wants to retry it in the new year but on a MUCH lower dose because the first neurologist put me on a dose that they would use for psychosis not TS!

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I have HFA, ADHD, OCD & Tourette syndrome. I love animals, especially my bunnies and hamster. I skate in a roller derby team (but I'll try not to bite )

You should quit any SSRI just like that. Slowly lower the dose over a couple of months. That said I still had the jolts you describe when coming off them.

I have nothing good to say about Citalopram. Because of it I suffered terrible apathy (which made me even more depressed), sexual dysfunction (which made me even more depressed) and generally diminished mental capabilities. Withdrawal made me aggressive, caused me to have manic crying or laughing sessions, dizziness and those peculiar "brain jolts / electric shocks".

Oh yeah I have experience with meds! In graduate school, I started to really lose it (this was 2005) so the University Doctor put me on Klonopin for anxiety and Zoloft for axiety/depression.

Next was Paxil...then Effexor...then Citolopram plus ativan...then Zyprexa (an antipsychotic that caused me to gain 45 lbs in 6 weeks and it made me a zombie)...then Wellbutrin...and those are just for the anxiety.

For sleep during this same time period, I took Lunesta, Ambien, Trazadone, Amytripteline (sp?), Xanax, and Sonata. All were bad news for my day-time cognitive abilities...not to mention sleep walking, sleep eating, sleep drinking...hell I even woke up one morning to realize that I had shampooed all the carpets in my apartment the night before! (I didn't mind that one so much. )

Finally in late 2007, I went on Prozac (80mg/day) with ativan as-needed and that worked okay for a year and a half or so. Now I take nothing except for ativan when I am having a meltdown.

Overall I would have to say that the drugs kept me from killing myself because I was too doped up to even find a gun, much less pick it up, load it, and pull the trigger. That being said, I am doing much better now that I don't take them.

I exercise A LOT instead and that seems to work for me. And I don't eat wheat anymore...it makes me far more melt-down prone and tired. Another thing that has helped me is taking melatonin supplements at bedtime. My dreams are wild but I like them that way so I don't mind.

Oh yes, I forgot to add the freaky intense dreams and fatigue from the list of Citalopram side effects.

Dunnyveg, does the ginseng also seem to help with blood-sugar regulation that you have noticed?

If my blood sugar is too low or too high, I am not able to deal with much of anything. So far, B-vitamins are the best thing I have found to help stabilize my blood sugar...othe than avoidng processed foods that is.

The mood swings and getting high from an antidepressant sounds bipolarish to me, but I don't know a lot about that.

I had a hell of a time finding an antidepressant that worked and that I could tolerate. I hate SSRI's. I'm on a tricyclic (Elavil) now, and while it does have stronger side-effects they are effects that I don't mind as much. The SSRI-induced apathy/zombification/restlessness and increased hyperacuasis was really horrible to me.

I also took Xanax for a number of years, but the truth is it only worked for about 1.5 years due to tolerance. Now, I use a transdermal magnesium supplement which works well, but I seem to have an unusually strong reaction to it. I probably have weird stuff going on with my brain (i.e. alcohol gives me insomnia, have pre-existing brain fog & cognitive loss, etc.), so I may not be a useful model/example about this stuff.

I've been prescribed Xanax for anxiety, Lexapro for OCD and Risperidone for bad/psychotic thoughts. I've been on all these medications since I was 14, and they have been like miracle drugs for me. They have made it possible to function without any noticeable side effects.

However, I'm beginning to think that Risperidone isn't working for me anymore, because my bad thoughts have come back and I have been experiencing hallucinations and pseudo-hallucinations with increasing frequency since mid-late summer. Additionally, when I first began to take Risperidone, it made me so drowsy that I took it at night so that it cured my insomnia. It used to only take me 30 to 45 minutes to fall asleep. Nowadays it takes me an hour and a half to 2 hours every night to fall asleep.

I briefly took Zoloft for about six months, but quit because it was making me tired and I expirenced a decrease in motivation. Currently, I'm taking Selegiline ( a MAOI used to treat parkinsons) it's easily found on online pharmacies. Selegiline works somewhat at25mg, but I definitely need to increase the dosage.

Not sure if this helps you, but of everything I've tried seems like a regimented dose of cannabis and ginseng tea have been the most reliable stabilizers for me. When my time was less tied, I used to ride bicycles competitively and that exercise helped a ton. Also, I stay way clear of caffeinated coffee.