Meds Experiences Thread!!

A thread for talking about what meds have and haven for worked for you, various effects and side effects, and general commiserating re: the crapshoot that is medication. Originally started for brain related medication, but this would be fine for other meds you want to talk about, too.

Currently soliciting pun ideas for the thread title.

Note: Please keep in mind that this isn't intended to be a "who is the most medicated" contest, aim to be inclusive. :)

 

runs in
yes hello I am interested in hearing other peoples' experiences with meds!
also does anyone have experience with anti psychotics that are not Abilify (which my mother maintains is an anti-anxiety because obviously I'm not Really Psychotic)

 

I've gone cold turkey off every antidepressant I've ever been on because none of them did anything for my executive dysfunction and arranging to get them refilled and picked up took work. This universally resulted in a massive depression crash, except for Wellbutrin, which had either stopped doing anything or not been doing anything in the first place. I've never had the horrible physical withdrawal side-effects other people are describing, though- I was just a miserable lump who could barely get out of bed.

 

my understanding of antidepressants and my ADHD brain is that SSRIs alone were shitty and ineffective. BUT when i got on the escitalopram+ wellbutrin 2x combob my brain EVENTUALLY stopped trying to kill me. wellbutrin is magic

but MAN..... MAN, missing three days' worth of cipralex was the worst thing in the world.

i was too fuckin depressed and anxious to get out of bed to go get my prescription, and on day two the brain zaps started. they don't..... hurt, exactly, but they're alien and PROFOUNDLY uncomfortable and waiting for the next one is like torture. another fun side effect was that my anxiety got ramped up to a billion, and the anticipation of waiting for the next zap made it all even worse.

it was so fucking bad!!! i am not doing it justice here. it was so bad that as i walked to the pharmacy, i was swaying on my feet and genuinely longing to throw myself in front of every car that drove past me. it made me want to die for the first time in months. NEVER AGAIN

DONT GO COLD TURKEY OFF SSRIS, KIDS!!!!

zopiclone is another super fun one that fucked me up for a long time (⋈ò.ó)

 

ahh, i've been on the medication carousel for the last couple of years, just trying to get a handle on MDD and generalized anxiety.

-started on Lexapro/escitalopram. it helped, though not really enough; also, i gained about 10-15 pounds. but then i moved countries and i didn't have insurance and couldn't afford escitalopram anymore. so i switched to...
-Celexa/citalopram. this is supposed to be very similar to escitalopram. it actually really helped with my depression... but my anxiety fucking skyrocketed. also, i lost at least 15 pounds because i couldn't eat and was anxious all the time. stayed on that for about 8 months, which was 6 months too long. then switched to...
-Paxil/paroxetine. this was... ok. but didn't really help enough. my anxiety calmed back down a bit, but my depression came back. so my doctor suggested...
-adding Wellbutrin/bupropion in addition to the paxil. this. made. everything. worse. i was edgy and irritable and my depression crashed so hard that i wound up in the psych hospital for a week. while i was in the hospital, it was agreed that my current meds weren't working, so they switched me to...
-Lexapro/escitalopram, plus a low dose of Abilify/aripiprazole. yup, it's been long enough that Lexapro now has a $4 generic version available, so i'm back on that! current dosage is 15mg escitalopram plus 2mg aripiprazole. it's working out, a LOT better than any meds i've ever been on. i'm a lot happier and more stable, and my anxiety is under control. the abilify made me sleepy for awhile, but i switched to taking it at night. i DO get nauseated a lot, though. i get waves of bad nausea hitting me randomly most days. aaaaaaaand i've gained at least 25 pounds since switching. (i was chronically underweight for years, and my doctor told me i actually look healthier now, so i'm not worried about it, except i've had to buy a lot of new clothes.)

one common side effect for me is nausea. p much every med i've been on has interfered with my ability to eat, if only because food tends to make me nauseated very easily. also, i metabolize drugs REALLY fast, and if i miss one-- or even am late-- it's brain shock city.

 

....okay, see, what's interesting to me is, I'm consistently hearing here that everyone who's gone cold turkey off their depression meds has, at least once, had a bad experience, especially with SSRIs.
I've gone cold turkey off every single depression medication I ever stopped having to use. outside of Effexor (which I don't think is an SSRI?? but every other one I used was an SSRI), none of this has ever had any impact on me at all.
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????? am I magic????????????????

 

I am not psychotic, but was given several antipsychotics anyway. Latest one, and the one I've actually noticed the effects of, was Risperdal. I started at 2mg a day, got the dose raised to 4mg, which immediately got lowered to 3mg along with Lepticur (:P), and then the dose got progressively lowered to 2mg, at which point I quit it cold-turkey because it sucked.
I wouldn't call it a side-effect because it was the intended effect in my case, but the sedative effects were particularly bad, I slept around 11 to 12 hours a night. I had also mostly stopped stimming, which I didn't even notice and was very confused as to why I just couldn't deal with anything anymore (except it also made me unable to get up and leave so it was even worse). It also made me constipated which was awful.
I also took Tercian (Cyamemazine), which is the standard this-patient-doth-protest-too-much drug here, and hydroxyzine for anxiety for a while.

 

@chaoticArbiter Effexor is apparently an SNRI.

 

yeah, I knew it wasn't an SSRI, I just wasn't sure what it actually was. I'm....not sure of the difference between the two? but /shrug

 

SSRIs stop your brain from absorbing all the serotonin back before it can do anything, and SNRIs do the same thing with both serotonin and norepinephrine.

 

huh.
this does not explain to me why I'd experience horrible withdrawal off the SNRI but not any of the SSRIs, but good to know!

 

anyone have any experiences with benzos? i was once prescribed clonazepam for chronic insomnia by a well-meaning but inexperienced doctor and it was uh. the Worst

 

storytime so this is not brain meds related but

Spoiler: spoiler cut because im shy

once after surgey they gave me a shitton of narcotic/nerve pain meds in the hospital and to take home, and my doses were huge and multiple times a day because Pain Sucks. and at first it was fine and great but i was kind of curious as to why i felt fine and they didnt make me feel loopy, or drowsy, or at all similar to those videos of kids on youtube after getting their wisdom teeth pulled out

well

well

coincidentally i had therapy the day after i got home and my therapist talked to me for like 10 min before being like 0_O Something Is Not Right

so fun fact, like apparently being allergic to some kinds of pain meds can cause severe mania and i was on the verge of/having a psycotic break. also i hallucinated sounds 8D

and that's the story of why i cold turkeyed oxycodone oxycontin and gambapentin all at the same time (because i was manic and basically Decided That I Was Going To Stop And Like Hell Anyone Was Going To Tell Me To Go Slower oh god i have so many regrets)

*jazzhands*

(effects of cold turkeying were: chills! WAIT NOW YOUR BODY IS A SWEAT FOUNTAIN! chills! SWEAT FOUNTAIN! CHILLS! + other unfun things i know but i cannot for the life of me remember what they were + the mania did Not go away right away and because i was upset (as opposed to happy, like before) i was still screaming randomly at people and things at the slightest/without any provocation)

 

I dunno how helpful my experiences with antipsycotics will be because im not sure i needed to be on them? But here goes:

Zyprexa made me really sleepy and have crazy dreams as well as making it very hard to think, but helped with my paranoia and hallucinatory crap. After a while the drugs themselves were causing hallucinations so i asked to switch to something else. Was switched to geodon and i honestly was in such a funk at that time i dont remember much other than i was still really depressed and my meds were doing nothing for it.

Eventually got wellbutrin added, it did nothing for me except make me horny??? Idk.

Ended up getting taken off wellbutrin and put on zoloft, had an allergic reaction and when i went into my doc a few days later to ask what to do he said "can you just keep taking them, or take nothing?" And i just kinda. Went home. Because what do you even say to that? I only saw this guy every 6 months and we would talk for 5 minutes and he would give me meds that didnt work and it sucked.

Then we moved and i no longer qualified for that county's doctor stuff, and i went medless for a couple years. Had another bad manic episode ( which is why i was on meds the first time, but i wasnt diagnosed bipolar til this time) got put on seroquel and prozac, had an allergic reaction to prozac. Seroquel worked great and still works decent even though i dont think it works as good as it did.

Seroquel gives me crazy dreams but doesnt make me overly tired unless its just been recently upped. It feels a little like it messes with my thinking but thats probably because i dont have full on manic flipouts anymore where i feel like i can do anything. Its sort of like being on a baby version of the stuff i was originally on.

Was recently started on lexapro but its only been half a week so no solid readings on that yet.

 

Oh, thing: ive definitely noticed the "lexapro yawn", and my teeth grinding at night has gotten worse which i read was a thing with lexapro sometimes

 

the....what?

 

Here's a weird side-effect: when I was on Prozac, I started constantly jiggling my leg up and down. It stuck around to a degree afterward, but on Prozac it was like. Whenever I was sitting down, one knee was bouncing. I could usually make myself stop, but as soon as I stopped paying attention, it started again. "You're shaking the car" "I'm sorry, I'm not meaning to" was a repeated exchange with my mom.

 

anyone have any experiences with mood stabilizers in contrast to SSRI/SNRI/DNRI?

 

Lexapro can make you yawn a lot. Its sort of like how lisinopril ( a blood pressure medication) can give you a chronic dry mouth ( which is another annoying side effect i suffer from cause im on lisinopril).

Theyre supposed to be rare side effects but ive been told by different doctory types its actually pretty common

 

oh. huh. that's interesting.