Meds Experiences Thread!!

oh yeah cipralex makes me yawn like crazy, big, jaw-cracking yawns. it drives all my co-workers up the wall, cause i'm constantly making THEM yawn

 

I've never gone cold turkey off anything and even the concept of doing so terrifies me.

I had to go through a fair amount of meds to find The Ones That Work For Me now, though.
(Current meds: prozac, buspar; topamax; birth control I started recently that I don't remember which one it is)

I'll edit this post as I remember what else they tried me on but the two that stick out the most are

klonopin/clonazepam -- We still don't know why this happened, by I want into complete emotional meltdown and just cried one day. My emotions went haywire for several days and then one day I just. Cried. Uncontrollably. Literally all day. Eight hours. I wanted to call my psychiatrist to ask how do I stop but I couldn't make a phone call because I couldn't stop sobbing after the first hour I wasn't even particular sad or distraught it just wouldn't stop. It was definitely the weirdest experience I've ever had with a drug.

zoloft/sertraline -- This did, admittedly, work very well to stop my anxiety! It also stopped EVERYTHING. I could feel nothing on zoloft. I was robotically productive and stayed on it for quite a while but eventually I reasoned that I should probably feel emotions. I missed remembering how to love my girlfriend. That was really what did me in. I didn't feel happy, or empty, or depressed, or anxious, or anything. I just functioned. So it was effective but it wasn't human, and I made the choice to find something that didn't strip everything away.

Medicine is gr8 but also weird :D

 

i'm on prozac, and i definitely jiggle my leg quite a bit - though maybe a bit more side-to-side than up and down.

anyway, yeah, i don't feel really that affected by prozac or by going off it. my parents sometimes say i'm more anxious when i'm off it and can guess when off it by my anxiety, but it really doesn't feel like it does much - good or bad or otherwise. but that might be just 'cause (some) bodily sensations and emotions have always been muted for me. there but real hard to notice. i recall there being a technical term for it and that term being mentioned in the kink thread but the term escapes me right now, dammit.

 

oh, okay, not a technical term, per se, but yeah... lassie's shitty owner

 

things I have tried that did not work that were supposed to be for my depression:
- Paxil
- Celexa
- Zoloft
- Lexapro
- Prozac
- Wellbutrin
- Mirtazapine
- Seroquel

they all did nothing! and I quit every single one cold turkey with no problem.
and then finally we tried Effexor and it's the only one that's ever done anything for me.

 

Oh yeah, i just remembered trazodone. I really fucking hate trazodone. they handed it out like candy for sleep in inpatient, and they gave it to me that first night to "help me sleep" and then proceeded to try and wake me up a few hours later to take a blood sample. I was so dizzy and couldnt keep my eyes open, and i vaguely remember the doctor who took my blood talking to the nurse like i wasnt there. He said something possibly rude and she said something angry back and i clearly remember him replying "they dont know what theyre doing anyways, theyre not in control". Im still pissed about it, and i never want to feel like i cant control myself like that again.

 

oh yeah, I got prescribed that to help with my insomnia at one point. I slept like a rock through the night, but I'd have massive fucking headaches in the morning.

 

I think wellbutrin is the one I tried that did nothing, same with my mom and sister. Pretty sure it was wellbutrin. (We're all on different antidepressants whee!)

 

The only thing I've ever been on properly was Zoloft for.... five months? Maybe? I didn't have the money for a psych at the time, my medical insurance status and primary care was up in the air, and I couldn't get my prescription renewed, so I tapered myself off on half pills over the course of a week. (Of note, I was on a pretty low dose too. 25 mg, maybe?)

I had crippling migraines for over a month and swung pretty low. While I was on it I was pretty functional and capable of running around, but I feel like my mood was more neutral than good, and I can't say if my executive dysfunction was better or worse because of mitigating circumstances (abusive roommates who left messes catastrphically big and actually turned their room into a biohazard) which made my usual measurements of function, like housework, kinda fucky.

I take Xanax as needed, like itty bitty baby dosage. Like, itty bitty baby dosage. We're talking half a 0.5mg pill now, and I was taking half a 0.25 dose when I first started. It kicks my anxiety in the nuts, but if I'm not careful I will literally curl up somewhere and pass out without warning. I took too big of a dose before driving to school once, and ended up skipping my morning classes to sleep in my car for four hours instead.

(I took a full 1 mg because of mistaking Moony's xanax for mine and taking two since the first didn't kick in fast enough after a night terror once. I slept for twelve hours and woke up feeling like I was dead. Moony couldn't do anything to get me upright, and the couple times he managed to rouse me were for less than a minute at a time. It was kinda terrifying in retrospect.)

The first thing my psych tried me on was actually Strattera, because she thought it might help with the depression and she wasn't sure if I had anxiety, ADHD, or both, based on my behavior and description of issues with function. I was supposed to try it for a month to see if it did anything, but it gave me crippling migraines and had a bad interaction with excedrin (which was my bad for not checking) and left me unconscious for about five hours. I dropped it after four days, and after that we moved over to the Zoloft with Xanax as needed combination.

 

Me! I was on Seroquel off-label because I couldn't sleep. (Yay mixed states.) I slept, but I also dragged through the days, slurred and forgot pretty much every conversation I had.

 

hmmm....that sounds sucky :/
I've been on Seroquel, though, it did nothing for me, unfortunately.

 

ooooh i HATED trazodone >:0

and omg @ that clonazepam story..... D: what it did to me was like, it totally drained my body of energy but ramped up my anxiety and hyperactive tendencies, so i'd be lying in my bed feeling like a corpse but my brain would be going a million miles an hour and i would feel like --- y'know when you really need to stim? like you've got this burst of energy that NEEDS to be used to flap your hands really hard? it was like that only the energy wasn't actually THERE, and instead of happy hand-flappies, i needed to pace and shake and pull out my hair.

BAD TIMES!! i ended up calling my dad cause it got so bad and he went "holy shit you're taking WHAT for sleep???!" which is not the first reaction you want to hear from a doctor re: a new medication you're taking

 

Oh, but also my entire family has fucky reactions to medication. Every pill-form birth control my sister tried made her suicidal, and my mom has been doing a medication dance for years to see what works (in combination with a family predisposition for migraines Among Other Things) and it looks like she actually can't take any anti-seizure medication because it throws her into a manic rage that nearly left her physically attacking a doctor.

 

I used to take 50 mg Seroquel off-label for sleep and it was absolutely wonderful for me. It did make it hard to get up in the morning because I was so drowsy, but I worked in the afternoons anyway and it was better than just... not sleeping at all, haha. When I got a new doctor he took me off of it though because it's "bad for me", whatever that means, so... no more sleep for me. :D
The only anti-depressant I've been on was 150 mg sertraline/Zoloft, in high school. I /thought/ it was working great, until I had a complete breakdown and it turned out I only thought it was working because it was making me constantly manic.

 

I only got the withdrawal effects when I was off it for a week+; missing a few days didn't make a difference. (What happened with me was stuff like "left my hometown -> was expected to sort out getting my prescription transferred to a new pharmacy on my own -> didn't -> ran out -> was even less able to fix the problem -> depression funk")

 

Things I tried that didn't work:
- Celexa (did nothing much until it stopped working)
- Cymbalta (did nothing for a great deal of cash)
- Lyrica (gave me tremors and the stupids)
- Topamax (gave me aphasia that I still haven't recovered from)
- Seroquel (snorrrrre)
- Abilify (yay instant mixed state)
- Buspar (forgot to take for a month with no difference)

What I'm on now:
- Lamictal (literally saved my life, totally worth the risk of a possible side effect of Death Rash)
- Wellbutrin (yay less suicidal ideation)
- Klonopin for breakthrough panic attacks

That's with 16 years of med roulette, several crappy doctors, wandering diagnoses and the excellent shrink I'm with now.

 

I've been on a lot of things in the past but don't remember names because whee bad memory. but most recent thing was Paxil and I got off of it cold turkey because I had a falling out with the psych they suddenly switched me to on base (worst I've ever had, j f c the memories of the things that woman said and did to my file..) and I was out of refills and tired of arguing with the doctors and about to move to America again with no idea when I'd see a doctor or when insurance-get.

while on it: worked great, save for the occasional shock, occasional bout of "it's been 3 days and I dont' know what sleep is still", and near the end a rising sense of paranoia. it kept me chill, calm, smoothed out the sharper bits of terror and just.. idk I miss it. It was v chill. I was on way too high a dose apparently as well, according to another doc, but the lowering of the dose made the effectiveness swing to less and then suddenly needing to cold turkey.. :I;;;

fullbody zaps that put my usual hard tics to shame, I was shaken and shivery and scared of the next to come for ages. took WEEKS to go away. was seeing more shit than usual, the paranoia ran rampant, panic attacks were amped up, neuropathic pain out the ass and All Of The Flares for my physical health stuff. Sleep fuckery. No chill. Lots of nausea and the occasional shaking too. Just... exhaustion afterward, mental exhaustion, it was like being followed by a hunter but I was essentially a deer with a rifle looking in a mirror.

and yet even with all that scary memories of the cold turkey and the waffling on the dosage and the entire website devoted to making people avoid it bc of how bad it can get, I'd prolly agree to go back on it because it'd been the first/only thing to actually WORK for me. I'm so tired of not having anything helping my brain, it's been almost a damn year now. @w@

 

not a brain med (at least in the sense of the term here :p) but woo nelly do i have issues finding shit to kill my migraines.

currently, i'm on a mostly-effective cocktail of magnesium oxide, propranolol, and topomax daily, and naproxen and uhhh fuck i forgot the name of the other one as-needed

originally, i was on ametriptelyn, which made me tired but it wasn't too bad! I didn't notice it helping much, though. it got bad when my neurologist put me on sumatriptan as needed in addition, and it ended up knocking me out as soon as i would take it. once i facplanted into a couch, i was so tired.

i don't...actually remember most of the sixish months i was on the both of them, but eventually they took me
off--i don't notice pain easily, so sumatriptan was basically useless for me as you need to take it as soom as the migraine starts--and through trial and error found this cocktail that mostly does the job

the only med i've found that really kills my migraines is toradol, but i basically can't take it at all anymore because it's pretty gnarly and will fuck up your heart. it sure was nice to have it to kill those week-long migraines, though ):

 

I've been on clonazepam for a while, but as an as-needed for anxiety thing. Apparently this is... not the best way for it to work, but that's how a previous doctor prescribed it. I've also been on Ativan as needed for panic attacks and that worked. so much better. Valium knocks me the hell out and Xanax does absolutely nothing for me, but it works for my sister. Clonazepam is supposed to be something you take daily, but for a lot of people, it's not recommended to do daily benzos, because both tolerance and addiction happens very fast and withdrawal is a bitch. Just taking Ativan as needed has worked out very well for me, though - I'm a little clumsier, but I can actually get through the day and finish my shift if I'm at work. I'm tired when I get home, though.

I've been on mood stabilizers for over a year now, after several years doing the SSRI/SNRI dance. They work so much better for me and I've found I have much less zombiefication. I'm on lamotrigine, although I need to get my dosage upped and probably add an antipsychotic. SSRIs always made me... weird, for lack of a better word, and I always had to get off of them after a max of six months for side effects. Lamotrigine, in contrast, has one possible very serious side effect which I've never had, and it regulates my sleep-wake cycle very well even though that's not what I took it for. You really, really have to take it at the same time every day, though - I joke that it has a built-in medication reminder, because if I stand up and feel dizzy, it's probably because I took my pill late. And I'm talking like, forty-five minutes late. I also get emotionally labile if I miss a dose altogether, but I'm so happy to be on it. Granted, it was the first medicine they tried and it happened to work out really well for me - I've known one or two people who worked better on another mood stabilizer.

Has anyone been on seroquel before? Like I said, I probably need an antipsychotic, and my mom and my sister have both done well on it and we tend to react to medication similarly, so that's probably the first one my doctor will try.

 

Chronology of medications for brain stuff:

Prozac - reduced anxiety, which resulted in SLEEPING CONSTANTLY. I would drive 20 minutes to college, get there a little before class (5-10 min), and then go "nope, nap is happening instead", and find a couch and sleep through class. And then go home and sleep more! Still pretty depressed. That went on 2-3 weeks. Quit cold turkey, no side effects.

Welbutrin - tried after Prozac, reduced my intrusive suicidal thoughts (the reason I decided "ok time to talk to a doctor!!", had had depression & anxiety for years), helped a little with lethargy. Didn't help anxiety directly, but I had a larger supply of spoons so there was proportionally less eaten by anxiety. Stayed on this for the remainder of undergrad (~6 months), helped me be functional enough to graduate. Quit after graduation, although you can't really call it cold turkey since I was shitty at taking things regularly anyway. Not sure if side effects or regular depression, but the summer after graduation was unbelievably shitty!!

Citalopram (20 mg) + Wellbutrin XL (150 mg??) - reccomended by a psychologist & prescribed by my GP once I got into proper therapy because of Hell Summer. Was the first time I was able to go "oh wow I can actually tell a difference in my brain" rather than just a reduced frequency in "kill yourself" thoughts. Between these and Actual Therapy, I was the least depressed and the least anxious I had been since I was a child. This is also when I figured out the secret to being able to take meds consistently: TAKING THEM AT NIGHT. I'm kind of annoyed no one suggested trying to take them at a different time of day if I had a lot of trouble being awake consistently in the morning, but whatever. I try to take them between 9-10 PM now. Again, quit cold turkey, this time because my insurance expired about 2 years later. AFAIK no symptoms other than depression coming back.

Citalopram (20 mg) - started once I got into grad school & got insurance through the school. Helped some, still problems.

Citalopram (30 mg) - Helped a little more, still some problems.

Citalopram (40 mg) - Major issues such as suicidal ideation & self-hatred significantly reduced, still issues with lethargy.

Citalopram (40 mg) + Wellbutrin XL (150 mg) - trying to see if starting Wellbutrin again would help with the lethargy, no change

Citalopram (40 mg) + Wellbutrin XL (300 mg) - HOLY VEGETATIVE DEPRESSION BATMAN!! I was in bed for 12+ a day for the better part of 3 weeks, it was ridiculous. It's hard to notice days passing when you sleep through them. It was awful. Went off the Wellbutrin cold turkey, less of a problem with lethargy but about the same as before.

Citalopram (50 mg) - started this dosage after stopping the Wellbutrin part. Seems to be better than the 40 mg, still problems with lethargy.

Unrelated to depression, I started taking 40 mg of Strattera for possible ADD. It helped, I sat down to do stuff and I actually did it!! A superpower!! Side effects: NAUSEA! Significantly worse if I took it on an empty stomach, so now I have an excuse for night time snacks. :V

Currently: 50 mg of citalopram/celexa, 80 mg strattera (which is the actual usual adult dose). Depression still occasionally a problem, anxiety only a problem under a lot of stress, ADD helped A Lot. Still lethargic!! So now we're exploring the possibility that it's not a depression thing, it's some OTHER physiological thing. So I'm gonna see a neurologist and schedule a sleep study this month. =_= *sarcastically throws confetti*

A post on my nonpsychological medications will come later. Yaaaay.