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These medications are ruining my life

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I had panic attacks that ended me up in the Hospital many a time before I finally submitted to medications. I only get anxiety, though I have had one panic attack since I started meds. I had many attacks before the meds, much more severe than the anxiety or the one panic I have had since meds. So I am relieved that I am taking the meds.

I have been in therapy longer than I have been on meds. I was reluctant to take the meds and so refused them to start with. However, I do feel my best state has been since I am doing both.

I work hard between sessions too. I write. I paint. I do mindfulness. I pray. I probably pray more than the other things combined, prayers are the easiest of all these things to do, I think.
 
@Ellie May I’ve been on every f*cking antidepressant and antpsychotic out there. I am not particularly opposed to meds and was cooperative with the revolving door of shrinks where I first went to for depression after a chemical brain injury at work. I wanted to feel better and I could not get off the couch. Nor could I sleep. Every time a different provider met with me, they’d switch my meds. All of them made me quite sick. Eventually I was prescribed Xanax which has been a blessing and a curse. Like you, I wasn’t initially having panic, but they knew my brain was damaged and I really do think they were trying to help me get some kind of tolerable life back.

I refused to take any more antidepressants but I was asked if I would try an atypical antipsychotics. I had brain fog and disordered speech and unable to concentrate. So that started the trial of all the antipsychotics. Finally, I tried Geodon and it was a life saver. Finally my brain calmed down so that I was able to go back to college and start a business. So for ten years the Xanax and Geodon were keeping me able to work (because of the chemical exposure I had, exposure to every chemical causes tremors and blurred vision). So my shrink retired and I found a new one, and of course he wanted to change my meds. Ugh!! I tried a brand new antipsychotic and it nearly killed me. So now I’m back on what works.

I would have severe reactions to most of the drugs I took, but once I stopped taking them, I stopped reacting. It didn’t last like the panic has for you. Was it a benzo that did that to you? It can be crazy making trying to use meds, but I was a recreational drug user in the 70s and I’m not opposed to them in general. I hope you feel better soon. I’m interested in trying medical marijuana but the only studies they’ve done with it for PTSD were on vets, not women. My sleep cycle is way off and I hear through the grapevine that it really helps with sleep.
 
Holy crap.

I feel bad.

There must be another post around here about coming off Effexor and I got you two confused!

I came off remeron before with no problems.

Sorry for my mistake!
 
I've heard that medical marijuana helps with sleeping issues (which makes sense), too. IBS, hot flashes, and epilepsy are showing promise under testing, so keeping my hopes up.
 
Tonight will be night 5 on 3/4 of a pill (after about a month alternating between 1 pill and 3/4 pill). I’m an emotional wreck. The delivery guy gave me a chicken sandwich instead of a chicken salad sandwich and I cried for 20 minutes. I’m feeling dizzy and anxious, but trying not to take Xanax unless I REALLY need it (already taking Klonopin .5mgs per day regularly). I also have mad heartburn, which happened last time I tried to get off this drug. I feel so depressed and hopeless. Who wants to wake up when you have months and possibly a year left of feeling like physical crap, let alone the other physical and emotional effects of PTSD.

Thank you guys so much for letting me rant for this entire week and still responding to this thread! It helps so much - both your feedback and just talking about it.

:hug: Ellie
 
Tonight will be night 5 on 3/4 of a pill (after about a month alternating between 1 pill and 3/4 pill...
So, I would just hang in there and hold until you stabilize.
I don't think alternating drug amounts the way you were is good. Your nervous system wants steady and consistent dosing going down only and holding if needed.
Taking a 10 percent reduction out at consistent intervals and holding when necc is a good way to go for sensitive people. This is very slow though, so it is all individual.
The point is to go down in a subtle way and let your ns adjust.
You are going down, then back up, then down again. If it were me and I could not tolerate the symptoms, I would go back up to the full pill and just stay there until I stabalized.
I would then figure out how to taper the med in consistent increments going dwn. I looked it up and it looks like you can use a compounding pharmacy or make your own suspension. But make sure you are transparent with this with a doctor.
I did this with klonopin and it was amazing how well it worked, I had to use syringes.
The thing is that doctors lack research about drug withdrawal. My view is that you need doctors to be in partnership with you, not to take over.
 
No worries, @Ellie May . Please remember to cut yourself some slack... it's never easy to get "clean and sober", even when it involves a legal medication that's properly prescribed for treatment purposes. The withdrawal process can be extremely unpleasant; getting more rest, staying hydrated, and working with your doctor on developing a game plan for recovering, that's a good start on learning to manage the symptoms that occur.

Hang in there. You've got this. :hug:
 
I’ve heard it said, how difficult it is to wean off benzodiazepines like Xanax. Personally, my doctor cut my dose in half without telling me and I started taking more because I was sooooo anxious and didn’t know what was going on. Then I ran out and he wouldn’t call in a script and I ended up in an ambulance. Three days I was sick as a dog it was horrible. I still didn’t know he had cut my dose in half until a few months later. How reckless was that?! Since then I can go between .5mg and 1mg without symptoms. If I skip a dose I get just a little jittery. Get stable with it, then revisit a sloooow wean off of it.
 
My Dr. cut me off Clonazepam by cutting my 1 mg dose in half one night and to 0 the next! I was in the Hospital and other things were being changed, like Atarax was being added, so I did not suffer very badly. Still, these are relatively low doses. If I were taking higher doses or more sensitive to these things, I probably would have suffered.

My new Pdoc seems to want to go with lower doses of my meds. To my way of thinking, this is good, because if I do have to go off of one, I suspect that doing so would not be as hard on me as it could be if I were taking a higher dose. Everyone reacts to meds differently though, so what I think might happen might not be the actual case at all.
 
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