In-depth look at how meds affected you

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Here is how my meds affected me.


Seroquel-- made me able to talk even to a murderer (and he was a nice guy underneath). Made me no less able to express my opinions. Though it made me a bit psychotic. Once I was walking down the street in Edmonton and even though I lived with my mother in a small room at the YMCA on 102A Ave, I thought I lived in an apartment by myself on King Street and thought I was going to my apartment instead of the other place I was going to with my mother, and wondered where my apartment was again.
Celexa-- off it, I felt like I could not get stimulation and would fall into a black hole in my head and die. On it, I felt like as long as I kept moving and doing stuff that wouldn't happen. So I went on shopping sprees to stimulate myself. I also posted lots and lots of threads here on WP, asking all kinds of questions about people.
Prozac-- I felt cool on it, like I was part of the Prozac Nation. But it didn't do anything for my social anxiety.
Haldol-- made me want to cuddle more with my boyfriend, but that was probably because I felt miserable on it. I had akathesia that was horribly painful. I couldn't sleep because my legs wouldn't stop twitching and couldn't relax. It made me moan in pain. I didn't feel in control of myself. I felt like I might do something crazy like shove myself in the oven and I kept having visions of being forced to walk on pins and needles. I forgot where I was and thought I was all alone in the middle of the ocean trying to swim but that my muscles were so tired and I just wanted to give up but I would drown if I did, and thinking that that would happen and I would never see my boyfriend again made me sad and I felt like crying. (And my muscles were sore from moving in unnatural ways.) Haldol also made the black holes I saw worse. I fell into black holes in my head and couldn't come out, and was paralysed until I could come out of them. I was afraid to go to sleep because I didn't think I would wake up. I had to keep moving if I wanted to stay alive. If I stopped moving, stopped stimlating myself, I would get the black holes. Whcih is what I had before I was medicated, but Haldol intensified it.
Zyprexa-- made me eat all day long... food I liked and food I didn't like. I ate mangos, kiwis, orange cheese, tortillas, the orange cheese melted in tortillas, nachos with cheese melted on them, bread with cheese, Mini Wheats with strawberry icing, other stuff too. I was still so depressed and had an issue to work out that had nothing to do with medication, so I was there lying on the floor depressed, and my boyfriend tried to tell me it was my meds not working but I knew it wasn't. He called the mobile crisis team that was working with me and they had me hospitalized in a voluntary short-stay place.
Geodon-- made me feel good and happy and alert, made me eat less instead of more, I lost some weight on it. But the thing was, even though I was less hungry, you have to take Geodon with food. So I had to eat even when I wasn't hungry, which was a pain. And once I started taking it with food (they didn't give it to me with food in the voluntary short-stay place, and it worked better on me then, oddly) it started making me tired. I took it at bedtime. My boyfriend couldn't wake me up once the Geodon knocked me out. Sometimes I accidentally took my daytime meds at night and my nighttime meds in the daytime, and so the Geodon made me feel like passing out and gave me some akathesia. so I slept for the rest of the day. It did not mix well with pregnancy either. It made me feel funny in my uterus, when I took it in the daytime and it gave me a bit of akathesia and knocked me out. It was probably because the akathesia made my muscles move in wierd ways including the muscles around the uterus.
Abilify-- didn't take away my black holes, gave me akathesia. I refused to take it once but my boyfriend wouldn't let me not take it. It made me pace, and do a piece of housework here and there, but mostly it made me a dysfunctional pacey person. When I tried it a second time, however, it worked. It didn't give me side effects and it made me able to get up in the middle of the night and feed my baby and otherwise spend time with him and do things for him.
Risperdal-- at first made me more motivated, then made me sleepy and lazy. I refused to take it once and my boyfriend argued with me until I took it. He said he noticed a difference within hours of me missing my daily dose of Risperdal. He said I made funny noises and was irritable and angry, and accused him of things he didn't do or something. I was still dysfunctional on Risperdal, but it gave me enough motivation to brush my teeth, at least. Well, at first it did. But then it made me feel really tired and unmotivated. I couldn't even get out of bed to feed or change or play with my baby.
Ativan-- put me to sleep within 5 minutes to an hour. Made me able to carry on a conversation calmly before it knocked me out.
Loxapine-- does nothing to me at all

OK...

Zoloft--no notable effect on depression except for an initial (very useful) placebo effect, but caused me to become quite tired.
Lexapro--may have had some effect on depression; more like making it easier to recover than actually creating recovery by itself. Had some trouble discontinuing after I went into remission, but tapered off successfully with no permanent effects
Haldol--Total zombie. No fun. Thankfully only took that one in the hospital.
Revia, Zyprexa, Seroquel, in addition to Lexapro: Zombie effect, again. I don't know which one, whether all of those did it, but... yeah, don't go to the psych ward when a meds-happy doctor is on call.
Strattera: No effect noted, maybe mild sedation.
Methylphenidate: Increased focus, but decreased creativity. Discontinued because my coping skills that took advantage of the creativity became useless, and the net result was less productivity. Still experimenting with very small doses to see whether I can find some sort of balance; if there is any positive effect I may ask the doctor about trying this one again. 5 mg seems to have some good effect, but this could be placebo.
Amitriptylene: For sleep. Hated it. I ended up groggy in the mornings. Discontinued very quickly, but did finish the prescription eventually--1/4th pill was enough to force permanent jet-lag back into shape when being tired in the morning was a small price to pay for sleeping at all.

Non-psych:
Birth control pills: Periods went from unbearable to mildly annoying. I had constant low-grade headaches the first week I took them, though. No change in mood; no weight gain.
Melatonin: Helps regulate extremely unpredictable sleep cycle--without it, I could be tired any hour of the day or night; with it I tend to go to bed anytime from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., only a six hour spread. Not always effective, though--case in point, I took my daily dose two hours ago and had to get up half an hour ago because I wasn't going to sleep.
Multivitamin: No known effect, but since I do tend to eat a monotonous diet when I can't be bothered to cook, it's worth the small monthly cost to prevent any deficiencies that might pop up.

lol

Lamictal had no affect on me whatsoever. No changes at all.

Citalopram made me have some mood swings, but nothing serious.

Seroquel made me lazy and tired.

Abilify made me sleep 16 hours a day.

Invega worked, but they stopped making it. Bastards.

2mg of risperdal made me super-ridiculouslu crazy and have absurd mood swings and bad temper and all sorts of crap.

Geodon made me ridiculously tired.

Lexapro+1mg risperdal just made me stable. Taken it for about a year.

Citalopram makes me get REALLY sweaty palms and feet and after being on it for three years, no longer has any affect. Plus I think I'm hooked on it. Tried to come off it once (carefully) and got the shakes, diarrea and severe nausea.

Risperdal made me develop severe psychotic/paranoid symptoms. I was shaky, angry and felt really sick. More recently on a 1mg dose, I became paralysed down my right side and slept for an entire day. Yeah, think I'll avoid that one...

Also:

Paracetamol (the Calpol fast melts) gives me shocking runs
Co-codemal gives me major mood swings and sometimes violent outbursts

And all of my meds (except the omaprezol) give me severe stomach problems, hence the reason I am on Omaprezol (a stomach medication) and sup down half a bottle of Gaviscon in the space of two weeks!

I only take natural stuff to calm down.
I am not the type of person who likes to be convinced that i need meds. For example, they tried to give me Efexor. But i rather smoke pot.

Epilim- it was used on epiletics i been told but has a wider range of uses,but can require a liver or kidney test i think every 3 months with a simple blood test , it seems to level me out a bit with my moods i think there is a generitic name for it

Are there others out there who take meds and get all messed up?

Part of my AUT is extreme sense issues. I took a sleep aid from Wal Mart and for like 2 days I was wack and it kicked up the issue with celiac.

I can't eat anythuing but organic rice cakes and vegies and fish. ANd rice milk. If I do I get sick, so meds make me sick and crazy.

Am I alone in this? Prozac made me almost psychotic and paxil made me so crazy I immedidately formulaed a suicide plan which I never had done and almost carried it out. Others caused things like binges or insanity or sleeplessness and just madness like I was another peron insane!

Of meds I am depressed but not crazy. So I stay off them and live my grueling life.

Now, I take zoloft, lamictal, abilify, klonopin and propanolol, all with no side effects, to treat my Bipolar I disorder.

I have taken:
(1)Lithium-zombie
(2)Haldol-double zombie
(3)Cogentin- nothing for side effects of zombie
(4)Prozac-mild benefit
(5)Paxil-like taking water
(6)Effexor-3 wks of constipation and high blood pressure
(7)Celexa-nothing
(8)Luvox-nothing
(9)Wellbutrin-nothing
(10)Depakote-worked. Weighed 225 lbs
(11)Ativan-zombie
(12)Xanax-zombie
(13)Risperdal-major side effects that eventually went away, but I don't need it anymore.
(14)Provigil-made me a nutcase
(15)Dexadrine-made me lose weight down to a size 6, no appetite, constantly picking at my skin, emotionally way unstable
(16)Ritalin-nothing
(17)Adderal-slightly better organization
(18)Revia-stopped urge to self-injure, no probs now in 14 years
(19)Vistaril-made me crave sweets and gain weight
(20)Neurontin-worked great but then I didn't need it anymore.

I think that's everything. It's been 24 years of psych med experiments to finally find the combo that worked.

jeesh....

i medicated for years with illegal drugs - i won't go into it as it has been covered enough in my early WP posts.

i was on SSRI meds for 11 year and came off 5 months ago.
i was more social on them, more able to organise. more disconnected from who i really am.

the past 5 months is the first time i have been off antidepressants since getting clean and sober -which means it is the first time since childhood years i am purely "me."

i stim more, (anxiety is higher off them) have less to do with others socially, am a thousand times happier, am more evidently WEIRD and eccentric.

I do not want to be numbed or dulled.
but getting to this place and wanting to be here is not a moral issue. it's just how i want to live. each to their own.

I forgot!

(21) Trazadone-worked when I needed to sleep.



First time I counted.. 26 meds including the ones I'm taking now have been tried with me.

Your body can become tolerant to the melatonin. Everything I've read about 5-HTP, GABA, melatonin and L-trytophan suggest that you stop the medication periodically. Some have said 1-2 weeks with a break of 3 days but my bottle of melatonin says 2 months on with a break of 1 week off. Also I had read that if you introduce synthetic melatonin into the body steadily enough that the pineal gland that produces melatonin will stop or slow production. My feeling is that if the melatonin is helping then your body probably wasn't producing enough to begin with.*

*The above info is just what I remember reading and could be inaccurate.

Cymbalta works good for me, i experience no side effects and i obviously get better from it.
Though i do get some minor nausea and sleepiness when starting to take it and a strange being in a bubble effect if i don't take it for a couple of days.

Wow, Whitetiger, and I thought I'd been on a lot.

I was also on Cogentin (benztropine-- took away my Haldol side effects but couldn't take it because I was pregnant, and put me to sleep later on in the pregnancy) and Inderal (propranolol-- made me feel different, altered. May have put me to sleep.)

I don't actually take it every night, just when it's getting to be within an hour of bedtime and I haven't started getting tired yet. That makes something like four doses a week, or so.

OK, my misunderstanding.

Tegretol-had some bad side effects off this one,the ones am hated most [and remember well] were when it made the pitch in hearing keep speeding up and slowing down and hallucinations.

Gabapentin-total zombie drug,also made am look and feel like had had a stroke because everything on left side was hanging down,drool kept coming out that side of mouth because of the hang.
didn't know what day it was,barely knew anything existed.

Tegretol retard-perfect,no side effects apart from bit of tiredness at start.

Ibuprofren [off doctor,big pink tablets]-severe stomach pain and constipation,thats what it caused not what it cured.

Co codomol off doctor-makes am interact with people,and very good for post meltdown or headbanging pain.

Tramadol [the long release type]-useless for most of the day,and then it starts working..very quickly,lasts for a long while,not good for accute pain in that have to wait so long for it to start.
No side effects,but mum [whom am had nicked them off] projectile vomits on them,and gets really bad itching all over and headaches.

Morphine-given a large amount of this through injection to calm am down,extremely hyper,before
then becoming light headed sometime later,and finally-going to sleep.

Diazepam-as a max dose user of tegretol retard-diazepam is completely rubbish,it interacts with teg,
and will not work at all,GP didn't know that,found that out on internet when wondering why it never worked.

Epilim liquid [throughout childhood]-a decent enough medicine that tasted great,can't think of anything that could have been side effects.

Some anti emetic tablet [don't know the name of it,but it was small,coated and round,smooth edges]-
was given it at hospital for sickness after meltdowns and seizures but not prescribed it because of the amount of meltdowns and seizures am have,when it completely lifted the sickness after first trying it,
am thought it was a miracle,there were no other effects to it but it was perfect as an anti sickness drug.

Melatonin [large size capsules]-worked,not perfect,it helped sister [aspie] a lot more.