Posted by headachequeen on January 27, 2004, at 9:50:46
In reply to Re: topomax, posted by bridgey1128 on January 26, 2004, at 23:44:02
> OMG did you really go cold turkey on Effexor??? I thought I would die and I was weaning myself off VERY gradually! It was HORRID!!! Brain shivers, headaches, nausea. It was the most horrible thing I have ever been through. I didn't have any side effects while taking the meds except a libido the size of the US. Anyone else have that with Effexor? I mean, my hubby wasn't complaining but it wasn't doing any good either for my depression. Oh well..GLAD I am off of it. My Dr said he had never heard of someone having that many problems coming off it. Guess it's the redhead thing!!!
Apparently the effexor and the zyprexa all but flat-lined my personality; the immovane helped me sleep (I was unable to turn off my mind -- still can't -- so didn't sleep and the immovane did that to great effect, I was asleep within seconds of taking it)
I am normally (I can hear my psychologist now, saying and what is normal???) a very animated and for lack of a better word animated person. I am an Anglo and we are animated -- talk with our hands and our eyes exactly as do our francophone counterparts <s> -- but I had become a very repressed version of myself.
To top it off I had been raised to supress my emotions; we are carved from Aberdeen granite was my mother's phrase and we do not show our emotions to the world...
my psychologist was having a hard time breaking through the double insulation as it were and he mentioned one day that I too was cut from that granite and held my feelings in check. As I walked home (not allowed to drive because of the epilepsy at this stage - good thing this is not a large city <g>) it occurred to me that the anti-depressants must be further suppressing my feelings and therefore causing more problems for any hope of successful therapy, so I decided to quit and I quit.
I consulted no one, least of all the psychiatrist from hell, who is sixty miles or so from here anyway, I simply decided and I did it.
I had no idea of potential reactions or that it was something that should be done slowly. I have always been the sort who decided to do something and did it... may not always complete it (adhd) but I do it now not later and seldom ask advice (as my husband will attest... witness the three truckloads of topsoil he arrived home to find dumped on the lawn when I decided we should have a new style garden in one part of the lawn... or the three afghan hounds he came home to find lounging on the couch or the day he came home to discover I had opened an antique shop... or the day he came home to learn I had begun work to publish a magazine... accepted a job with a television network... the list is endless...)
My doctor when I finally told him, two months later was astounded, I thought he would be angry and tell me to find another doctor if I was not going to take his advice, so told him I had been off for a month, offered other meds to help with the adjustment process, and told me that if one has to go cold turkey from these meds that one is usually put in hospital and monitored so that meds can be given if need arise and was I sure I didn't want something to help...
no, I didn't want anything.. I had done it and was rather smug...
then a few weeks later when I was laughing about his reaction the psychologist lit into me and told me some of the realities about how quitting these meds affects peoples and I was to say the least subdued
It did not bother me *that* time but I do not want to try to come off them a second time which is why when the psychologist suggested a return to them and that I should see my doctor for a prescription last month I was really frightened...
next time might not be as easy and I do not want a next time...
I do not want that zero-personality again either and I am terrified of reaching the point in depression or non-depression according to the one psychiatrist of having to go back to hospital..My psychologist tells me that at this point in time I do not need him... if I do need him I have only to call and he is there...
the psychiatrist upon my release told me that I would need years of psychotherapy... that was 16 months ago...
and that I would likely need to go back to hospital a couple of times at least...
the psychologist tells me that if ever I do have to go back and he does not think I will -- says he and my doctor will work together to keep me out -- that I am allowed to refuse to be treated by that particular shrink... and why did I not think of that THEN???
in the mean time maybe it is a redhead thing that let me quit the meds so easily that time? I don't know...
I just know I do not want to take them again ever...
they are really a flattening experience...
there must be something more positive to help people in need...
maybe a patient is the person to find that positive thing...
perhaps the topomax helps????
it certainly helps with the epilepsy and the migraine and takes off the weight...
so why not the hypomanic whatever that is not depression (arrgghhhh I will never get past the resentment of that pompous little man....)
kat
poster:headachequeen
thread:5053
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040127/msgs/305988.html