I don’t have “insomnia” so what is wrong?

[Cactus Bloom]

Fionas74...are you cutting back off your meds with your doc's knowledge or are you doing this on...

Thanks for your concern. I’m doing it on my own but I’m being very careful about it. I’m just tapering off of my Lamictal and then will slowly get off of the antidepressant. I’m not going to stop taking the clonazapam or the clonidine because I do need to sleep. My doctor wants to keep me on the meds of course. Most doctors or psychiatrists don’t listen and just want to keep me medicated. I’m having a hard time believing in anything anyone tells me about medication or anything. I guess I really shouldn’t care if the drugs are doing more harm than good and just continue with whatever. It kind of seems pointless to care about my health so maybe I will just continue doing what I am. There’s too much conflicting information and I’m tired of constantly being lied to. As long as my sleeping medications work then why does it even matter? I’ll just figure something out. Thanks for your comment

 

[joeylittle]

I’m having a hard time believing in anything anyone tells me about medication or anything.

I share that feeling, often.

Just a couple things to be aware of - the Lamictal taper needs to go slowly (sounds like that's what you are doing. It's at minimum a 2 week process, but is dose-dependent. Spacing out your lowered doses by a week is pretty reliable).

Lamictal may be keeping a manic episode at bay, so be attuned to that.

And consider Lithium. You seem capable of reading up on it - some docs won't bring it up because it's older, or because there's a bit of back and forth starting it up. But it can help depression, it's got an excellent tarck record with managing bipolar, and it appears to address a variety of mental health issues. They don't really understand how it works (of course), but unlike many psych drugs, Lithium is an element. It's already present in the human body, we are meant to be able to utilize it, and you kind of can't get more organic than an element.

(I'm also weighing the pros and cons of it, for depression, so this is a little bit the pot talking to the kettle, so to speak...)

 

[Cactus Bloom]

I share that feeling, often.

Just a couple things to be aware of - the Lamictal taper needs to go s...

I’ve been taking it slow because a couple of times in the past? I started a taper but didn’t give it enough time and that was hell. Yes, slow! Lithium was actually prescribed to me about 20 years ago and one of the side effects are it messing with your thyroid so I took regular blood tests to make sure I was doing okay. Unfortunately, I was in an almost coma state before a doctor said it caused me to have hyperthyroidism. Now I have to take thyroid medication the rest of my life but that’s not a big deal for me.